Twilight Retold
by Nom de Bella
Summary: With the final movie about to come out this year I decided I better put this out there before the story becomes totally irrelevant. This is a pretty much scene for scene retelling of Twilight infused with brutal and acerbic humor. Note as the author I am not a fan of the Twilight series, but have read the books and seen the movies.
1. Preface

I had never given much thought to how I would die. No, I guess that's not totally true. I mean, everybody has right? Like when you're in the car with a bad driver and you think, _Shit! I'm going to die right now!_ Or at three in the morning when you're feeling philosophical. I mean, half the people in the books I claim to read die. You don't finish _Romeo and Juliet_ and continue to be fooled into thinking you're immortal. Well, I didn't read _Romeo and Juliet_ at all, but I Sparknoted it and was deeply moved by the two young lovers' plight. Why couldn't they all just get along!

But that's neither here nor there. The point is I am dying and I am surprised. I guess it's not a bad way to go: tortured to death on camera by a sadistic monster. Well, I suppose there might be a few better ways, like quietly in your sleep surrounded by your loved ones. Now you might think it's a bit odd to have your loved ones watching you when you sleep, but I assure you, it's not ;) Now, pardon me for going off on a tangent (I promise this is the last time) but I'd like to take a moment to list a few other ways to go that are better than torture: shot in the head, heart attack, drug overdose, hanging, choking, drowning, sucked out into space, most poisons, bow and arrow, guillotine, explosion, freeze to death, carbon monoxide, fall from a great height, animal attack, run over, premature burial, Aztec ritual sacrifice, fall down a well, disease, witchcraft/voodoo, bleed out, hit by bus, hit by truck, hit by horse and buggy, Godzilla and/or the thing from Cloverfield, allergic reaction, cast member of the Broadway Spiderman musical, and Fox news. Well, maybe not that last one, but you get the point. On the other hand (note, _my_ other hand is _on fire_ right now) this is a noble way to go, in place of someone I love. You see I'm sacrificing myself to save my mom, except she was never in danger…and if she was I probably—no definitely—wouldn't have been any help. Maybe this sacrifice wasn't for my mom, but for Edward, yeah, Edward the immortal, super powerful vampire who'd kill himself without me and will eventually (spoilers!) save me…I'm just kidding, that was hardly a spoiler.

Well, I guess despite my imminent doom, I've blathered on enough (for the preface) so let's take the next couple hundred pages to examine the stellar life choices that got me into this vague, unfortunate situation.


	2. Chapter 1: First Sight

Chapter 1: First Sight

I was standing in the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with my mom who shall here to forth be known as Renee. I call both my parents by their first names because I'm…quirky? Mature? Narrating a story? I was here at the airport because I was going to move in with my dad, Charlie, in a place about as opposite from Phoenix as possible: rainy, cold, and probably full of left-wing environmental extremist coffee addicts in grunge rock bands. I mean, you gotta be high as a kite on the medical ganja to name your town Forks. I live in _Phoenix_ right now. You know who would win in a fight between a phoenix and a fork? Think about it.

I hadn't been to Forks for years because I hate Charlie. No, I love him, I'm just a terrible daughter. But I was moving there now because of Renee's new husband, Phillip. Phillip, you see, is a minor-league baseball player (that's really all you need to know about him, so that's all the development he gets) and Renee and him had to go to Jacksonville, Florida for spring tryouts.

"Bella," Renee said to me—the last of a thousand times—before I got on the plane, "You don't have to do this."

I knew that. I could've gone with them, there was enough room, Renee wanted me to go, I prefer Florida to Washington, sun to rain. But I didn't want to leave all my friends. _Pft_, who am I kidding, I don't have any friends. And even if I did, why then would I be moving to Forks? I guess there's no logical reason, so let's just say Forks was calling to me or some bull shit like that.

My mom, Renee, was very sad to see me going because we're like besties. I can't think of any examples to show you, and I probably won't in the future, so just trust me when I define our relationship as close.

"You be careful out there, sweetie," she said, eyes all red and puffy from crying. Now there's a laugh, _Renee_ telling _me_ to be careful? Here's a question, which one of us got pregnant and married at 19 then lasted a year before calling it quits and running away to another state 1,583 miles away? Renee looks more like me than her father, except she has short hair and likes to think of herself as "free spirited." Most of the time I humor her, but let's be honest, she's a woman-child who needed me to take on all the responsibilities (literally all of them, I made the money, bought the food, put gas in the car, and used Google maps when she got lost, which was all the time) so she could go run around the bases with amateur baseball players. And I'm referring to sex bases. I realize the metaphor was a bit clouded by the fact Phillip actually runs around actual bases.

"Don't worry about me, Mom," I told her, "Just because I'm going to Forks doesn't mean I'll get pregnant and married way too young like you did," I smile, the idea was so preposterous. That would mean this time next year I'd have to be engaged, and what sensible person, like me, would make a commitment like that after knowing someone only a few months? Come on, really?

"I just love you so much!" Renee blubbers, embracing me in a hug.

"I love you too, Mom," I roll my eyes, she is so over emotional.

"Tell Charlie I said hi," she instructed me.

"I will," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, but I'd been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now, and we've already established my mom's an idiot so she didn't notice.

Renee hugged me one more time and I got on the plane. Looking back on it, maybe it was a little extravagant for my mom to buy her own ticket just so she could go through security and walk with me all the way up to the door of the plane.

It takes four hours to fly from Phoenix to Seattle (according to Google maps) and another hour to fly from Seattle to Port Angeles, and an hour to drive from Port Angeles to Forks. So that's six hours. Even though planes crash all the time and everybody in the Seattle airport would be a complete stranger with any kind of nefarious plot in mind, and Charlie is the police chief, I was only apprehensive about the car ride with him, you see neither of us are what I would call verbose, mostly because I don't actually use words like verbose, and am not totally certain what it means, but the thesaurus on Microsoft word says it's a synonym for wordy. Now I'm not wordy when I talk out loud, but I am plenty longwinded in my writing, so don't worry, "This will have an impressive thickness," she said. Charlie had been nice about the whole moving in with him thing, probably because I'm his daughter and I haven't even called him in the past five years and he thought this would be the end of our estrangement. Ha ha! Jokes on him, you don't have to know a person well to live with them, I think we'll have maybe twenty conversations over the course of this entire series and most everything I say will be superficial or a lie.

As anticipated nothing of note happened on the flight, and as anticipated it took the precise amount of time I mentioned above. When I landed in Port Angeles it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen—just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun, and my hellos to melodrama. It had also been raining in Seattle, so that had also prepared me for the weather, and maybe this was too trivial to even bring up, but it's too late now.

Charlie picked me up in the cruiser because he's a policeman and they can't drive anything else. Most people in Forks call him Police Chief Swan and to be honest I probably would too, but that's a lot more letters to type than Charlie, and it's a bit too formal. I don't mind if people forget Charlie's a character in this story, but I don't want those who remember to forget he's my dad. The cruiser is the reason I wanted to buy my own car, no seriously. You might have thought I'd want my own car so I could drive myself around instead depending on my father for rides like a dork. Or you might have thought "I don't remember her mentioning wanting to buy a car before at all." In which case, you'd be right. This was strategic, because I figured you'd assume I wanted a car, where as you might not assume the flight from Phoenix to Seattle was four hours, and that's important information. Anyway, I didn't want to be driven around in a cruiser because nothing slows traffic down like a cop and I've got a need for speed. (But seriously, though, addiction to methamphetamines is a serious problem in Arizona, it's no joke.)

"Bella Swan!" Charlie shouted his greeting as I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac where he'd parked his cruiser. I guess sometimes he abuses the badge. He didn't usually call me by my full name, but I just realized I hadn't mentioned it before and the reader might be wondering what it is.

I climbed into the car despite my hate for it and Charlie got in the driver side.

"I found you a car" see, he assumed I wanted one, "Really cheap, it's a clunker. Wouldn't be surprised if it caught on fire while you were driving, or broke down stranding you in a seedy part of town. But I thought, hey, it's better than me having to drive you around all the time, and God knows you won't make friends who can give you rides, or friends at all for that matter."

"What kind of car?" I asked pointlessly, I know cars about as well as I know classic literature, meaning I know the titles, and I might even know what they look like but nothing deeper than that.

"It's a truck actually, a Chevy" apparently Charlie knew as much about cars as I did.

"Where did you find it?" An odd question to ask? Maybe. A stupid question? Perhaps.

"That's sort of a funny thing to ask," Charlie chuckled, "I mean, where do you think I found it? On Safari in Kenya? But I'm glad you asked because it gives me the perfect chance to introduce another character. Remember Billy Black, the wise old Indian man with the funny looking son name Jacob?"

I sighed, "Dad, why bring up Jacob? He's not really in this book."

Charlie furrowed his brow in confusion, "I thought he was a main character."

"I haven't thought about that yet."

"Whatever," Charlie shook his head, he had little patience for trying to figure out the way teenaged girls think, and quite frankly I'm with him, "Billy Black's a cripple now and he can't drive. He has a son about driving age, but why help him out when he can give it to you, the center of the universe."

I didn't know what my dad was talking about, just because everything revolves around me doesn't make me the center of the universe. I'm intelligent so I know that Galileo proved the universe revolves around the sun.

"What year is it?" You will quickly learn that I am very skilled at asking questions that allow other characters to deliver exposition. Working these questions seamlessly into the narrative I need some work on, though.

"Not too old, maybe…like…" I could tell he wasn't really thinking about it he was stalling. Either he didn't want to tell me how old it was because I would be made unhappy by it, or he was reaching his daily allotted word count and was struggling to think of the tersest way to say it.

"The fifties?" he guesstamates.

"How much does it cost?" I ask, choosing not to react to the fact that my new car is older than my parents.

"Well, Bella, I already bought it for you as a homecoming gift."

Oh, he got it free. What a douche bag! I've been busting my ass working full time at The Cheesecake Factory while being a fulltime high school student so I can pay the bills since Renee's too emotionally unstable to hold down a job and even though Charlie hasn't bought anything for me in I don't know how many years and he's got this sweet gig as small town police chief, he couldn't drop even one dollar on the vehicle I'm going to be entrusting my life to for at least the next year!

"Wow, Dad, you didn't need to do that."

"I don't mind," he said, completely missing the acid sarcasm in my voice, "I want you to be happy here." He didn't look at me when he said that but stared at the road. This might be because he was driving and you kinda have to look at the road for this, but I think it's more likely because he has a hard time expressing emotion. I inherited that from him. Well, I guess technically I have a hard time expressing appropriate emotion which is sort of a different thing.

"Thanks," I said even though his efforts to make me happy were futile. I will never be happy never EVER! I mean, I will never be happy in Forks, never EVER!

I pictured myself running to my room, hands balled into defiant fists, tears streaming down my face, slamming the door, because I was in a car and couldn't do it in real life.

That was the end of the conversation, because honestly if Charlie said any more somebody might think he actually has something to do with story, or worse yet they may think the characterizations I give in the narration are completely meaningless and not at all reflected in the actual actions of the characters.

Eventually we made it to Charlie's. Specifically, in one hour we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the little house he bought with my mom during the five seconds they were married. I didn't pay much attention to the house though, because parked outside was my new truck. It was red, and old looking, and I could tell it was indestructible. And unlike most teenage girls who would've been upset at the prospect of having to drive this ugly clunker around I fell in love with it (how's that for originality, haters!) I grinned devilishly at the idea of my big ol' truck destroying all the foreign cars, especially the Japanese ones. Yeah, those japs were gonna eat Chevy! I grinned wider when I realized that I would blend in perfectly on my first day of school arriving in a large red truck from the fifties. I can't believe Billy Black let this gem slip away for free!

I brought all my stuff up to my room. It had been my room since birth so I recognized it, I recognized floor and the walls and the ceiling, even the windows. I did not recognize the old computer sitting on the desk and was immediately suspicious of it. There was a wire attached to it that snaked its way across the floor to the nearest phone jack. Whipping out my iPhone, I researched what it could be for but came up with nothing because I had no bars and there was NO WIRELESS SIGNAL!

I got to unpacking. One of the best things about Charlie is that I can just write him out of the story whenever parental supervision is inconvenient. One of the worst things about Charlie is that he occasionally has to use the bathroom, and I do too, and there is only one in the house so we'd have to share. I HATE SHARING! I tried not to dwell on this, but you know me, it was a minor annoyance so I dwelled on that shit hardcore. What if I had to use the bathroom but Charlie was taking a shower? I would have to go out in the rain and probably get lost, or pee my pants. What if Charlie had to go to the bathroom while I was taking a shower and he just walked right in the room! What if I want to brush my teeth and Charlie's already using the sink, my teeth could rot out and I'd be hideous! I dwelled so hard I forgot how poor I was back in Arizona, we only had an outhouse and I had to share that with both Renee and Phillip and if I wanted to take a shower I had to sneak into the health club that was thirty blocks away and share that shower with hundreds of other people I didn't even know!

The bathroom had me so upset that I decided even though it was only three pm I'd turn in early have a good cry until I surrendered to the sweet darkness of sleep until the morning when I would have to go to school.

Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty seven students. Three hundred and fifty seven happened to my least favorite number, it plagued my nightmares as a child. There were no monsters in my closet or under my bed, just the number three hundred and fifty seven. It's like that old horror story, why was six afraid of seven? Because three hundred and fifty seven, eight, nine. Though, come to think of it, with me joining the ranks there are three hundred and fifty eight students. So we're good, don't worry about it.

When I walked into the school seven hundred and fourteen eyes would be staring at me, labeling me a freak. All people in small towns think big city folk are freaks, and it doesn't help that I don't look right. People from Phoenix should look tan, sporty, blond—volleyball players, or cheerleaders, perhaps—all things that go with living in the valley of the shadow of death—I mean sun, living in the valley of the sun. But I seldom do what I should. So instead of being beautiful I was plain, and like most plain girls I was naturally thin, had long luscious brown hair, and perfect, pale skin. And I'm not at all athletic, in fact, I am super clumsy. I literally can't walk and chew gum at the same time without falling flat on my face. I can't even walk and not chew gum at the same time without falling flat on my face. That isn't hyperbole, because I don't know what hyperbole is. That is my life. Then, beside the fact I think of myself as homely and idiotically clutzy, there's the fact I can't relate to people on even the most basic levels. It's like there's something wrong with my brain so I'm never on the same wave length as anybody else. That would be a nice metaphor, but as you'll find out, it's absolutely true. So remember: I am plain, clumsy, and socially inept, so all those lame-os out there who think I'm a Mary Sue eat that. And to all those lame-os out there who think I'm a terrible role model for young women…well…we're only on chapter one.

I didn't sleep well that night, even after I stopped crying the sky didn't. It was weeping and howling and it didn't even have to share a bathroom with my dad. Also keeping me awake was the fact that it was now only four pm and, even though I'm a fifty year old woman at heart, I can't fall asleep that early.

The next morning I braved the bathroom, and despite my best efforts to spot something gross I could freak out about it was relatively uneventful. It seemed redundant to have a shower in a place like Forks where it's always raining when you could just go outside. I stayed in though, body image issues and all that. At breakfast Charlie told me he hoped I'd have a good day at school. Ha! All the hope in the world couldn't save me now. Do you know what it's like to be a skinny white girl going to a predominantly white school when she's from Arizona but doesn't look like she's from Arizona? The other kids probably won't even believe I'm from there. They'll think I'm a liar. They'll think I grew up in a cave like those Plato people. They'll think I eat bugs and don't speak English! They'll think I'm Mexican and that's why I had to leave Arizona! I almost barffed up my Cheerios. Cheerios my ass. I'm not feeling cheery at all. Screw General Mills and their fake-ass marketing ploys.

Charlie left first, probably to get away from me, cause be honest, who'd want to hang around the same table where some girl was brutally beating her box of Cheerios? After he'd gone I looked around the house and noticed how sad it was. Everything was exactly the same as my mom left it, he still had pictures of her at their wedding up. He needed to move on. It would be nice to give him a new love interest, a nice outdoorsy hiker girl who was a lot like my mom but more mentally sound. But I'd rather just keep all the love interests to myself. I didn't want to go to school early, but I couldn't think of anything else to do (I often can't think of things, it's kind of a curse) so I grabbed by back pack and headed out the door.

I groaned in frustration when I realized it was still raining and I had to go back inside to put on my bright yellow poncho. It was perhaps not the most fashionable choice, but my fashion sense sucks so maybe it was. When I returned to the outdoors I took a moment to admire my truck again, it was so old and cool. Kind of like Charlie, except he wasn't cool, or this old. I shouldn't have focused so much on admiring because my brain got distracted and forgot to keep me standing up and my knees buckled and I fell to the soggy ground. Damn I hate this place.

I drove to school in the rain, obviously, and when I got there I was surprised to find that every student didn't drive a fancy sports car. How odd, I imagined they would be loaded here because…well, I guess on second thought it makes sense that a bunch of rural teenagers would have kinda crappy first cars. My truck was still the best though, because it could dominate these bitches without even trying. I guess the stranger thing was that the school was made up of a series of small buildings instead of just one big one. I could see why they might do this in a sunny place, like Hawaii, but I was kind of confused as to why Forks High School did this, when it meant that everyone would have to walk through the rain with all their stuff every time they had to change classes. Not to worry though, we'll change that for the movie.

I wasn't sure where to park so I just stopped my truck on the front lawn and reluctantly climbed out. I didn't want to look like an idiot. Just saying. I went inside the first building, assuming it was the main office because it was labeled as such. I marched up to the secretary and banged my hand on the desk to get her attention. She had red hair, which, according to my logic, made it okay for her to be pale. She also had freckles because everyone with red hair has freckles.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes," I lied, no one could help me, not really. I was beyond help, I had been beyond help since I was born, forever condemned to a life of obscurity and mediocrity, woe! "I am Isabella Swan."

Upon realizing who I was I could see her ears perk up. No doubt I'd been the only topic of conversation in town for weeks, and now that I was here I'm sure they'd never speak of anything else ever again.

She slapped a small stack of papers on to the desk, "Here is your schedule and a map of the school, we made it really simple because we know you have a hard time figuring things out."

"Thanks," I said and stuffed the map into my bag without so much as looking at it. I couldn't walk around with a map like some kind of n00b, what was that moron thinking?

I went back to my truck and saw that some other students were arriving. I started my truck up and stealthily joined the line of cars following them to the parking lot. After I reparked, taking up several spaces, not my fault a truck like mine deserves respect, I hopped back out and began walking in a direction I hoped was right. I took a deep breath. I can do this, I lied to myself (I know I can't do anything.) No one was going to bite me, no matter how much I begged them to.

I got to the building I needed for my first class, English. I started hyperventallating as I approached the door—doors are hard, okay! Fortunately there were two people in front of me and they had the burden of figuring out whether the door was a pull or a push. Once inside I hung up my poncho and went to the front where the teacher was sitting.

"Who are you?" he asked, he looked very much like a stereotypical English teacher, white hair, balding, glasses, elbow patches, the whole nine.

"I'm Isabella Swan," I explained, even though he was clearly just asking the question out of courtesy and knew who I was, "The daughter of Charles Swan, the police chief."

I hoped he wouldn't make a big deal out of my arrival and introduce me to the whole class.

"Okay, here's the reading list," he handed me a piece of paper, "Sit anywhere."

"You don't want to introduce me to the class?" I asked biting my lip, hoping he'd say no.

"No."

"Are you sure, you don't want to make sure they all know who I am, where I'm from?"

"No."

"You don't want to take just a few seconds at the beginning of class to tell everybody I'm the much anticipated daughter of the police chief?"

"Please have a seat Miss Swan."

Few, close one, narrowly avoided attention on that one.

I sat down in a chair in the back corner where no one could stare at me without being conspicuous. I looked down at the reading list it was pretty basic stuff, "Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner, Tolstoy, Einstein, Socrates, Hawthorne, Joyce, Burroughs, and Solzhenitsyn. Nothing I couldn't find summaries of online and b.s. my way through.

When class was over this total nerd with bad skin and greasy hair tried to talk to me. I half listened cause I'm a nice person and everything.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" he observed like a creep.

"Bella, god," was he too dumb to get nicknames or something? Why waste your time saying Isabella when you can just say Bella half as quickly. It's simple math.

"Where's your next class?"

Was this kid a stalker or something, why was he all up in my business? I mean, I know I'm no Natalie Portman, but come on, this guy wouldn't have a chance with Woody Allen.

"Um…" I really didn't want him to know where I'd be in case his stalking escalated, but it was only the second period of the day so he probably wouldn't believe that I didn't have a next class, "Government in building six," I lied, hoping he wouldn't be in that class.

"I'm going to building four, I could show you the way. I'm Eric by the way."

Did this kid have no sense of personal space? Jesus Christ, why couldn't he leave me alone? Did he think I wanted friends or a social life or something? Uh-uh, those are things for happy people, and—news flash—I'm not a happy person.

"Thanks," I grumbled, wishing I could crush him with my truck.

As we walked to my next class I could tell everyone was eavesdropping on our conversation, because, seriously, what else would they be doing?

"So this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?" he asked.

I wanted to say Shut the fuck up, dickwad, but I didn't want to be rude so I just said, "Very," and hoped he was smart enough to infer my real meaning.

"It doesn't rain much there, does it?"

"No, that's the f-ing point," I said.

"Wow, what's that like?"

"Dry, are you daft?"

He shrugged and continued to smile blithely I bet the tire of my car could wipe that smile off his smug little pimply face.

I went to all my classes and started to notice a few of the same people in each of them, which was odd because I don't usually notice other people. One girl sat next to me in two of my classes. She was really small, a good couple inches shorter than my five foot four, maybe she was a baby? She introduced herself as…well I don't remember but she didn't sound like a baby. She brought me to the cafeteria and let me sit down with her friends (unfortunately one of her friends was Eric, the ugly creepazoid who was obsessed with me or something.) Baby-girl introduced me to her friends but I was more interested in another table that had a bunch of hot people sitting at it. There were five of them. The two girls were complete opposites, one of them was blond the other brunet, one of them was beautiful and sexy the other was beautiful and cute. There were also three boys, one of them was handsome and strong, one was handsome and tall, and the third was…well…picture the most handsome man on the planet, multiply that by ten, give him bronze colored hair, make him seventeen and really pale, and you've got the third boy.

None of them were staring at me, which was kind of weird since I'm kind of the main attraction around here today. They also all looked too old to be in high school, like in movies when they get thirty year old actors to play victims in a slasher. They were all really pale with dark eyes and—now I could be wrong—unusually pointy teeth. They looked exactly like vamp—like models, they looked exactly like models.

"Who are _they_?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows and wink wink, nudge, nudging Baby-girl.

"Oh them," she sounded spiteful, "That's Edward and Emmett and Alice Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. They're all adopted you know, by the young Dr. Carlisle Cullen and his wife Esme Cullen."

They were odd names, I have to say. The kind of name only grandparents and vamp—models had.

"They are mighty pretty," I said, "The kind of attractive you feel down deep right in your loins."

"Yes!" said baby-girl who I can now recall is named Jessica, a really boring name now that I've been exposed to ones like Edward and Alice. "But don't bother, none of them would go out with me. They're all dating _each other_! Except for Edward. He's single but he still won't go out with me, so, y'know, probably gay."

I had a feeling Jessica and I wouldn't get along very well for very long. It never works out between two people who both think they are and should be the center of attention.

"Wait, they're family and they're all _dating_ each other!" I exclaimed when I was done thinking about myself and could process what she'd said.

"Yeah," she shrugged.

"Shouldn't people be…upset by that?"

"Honestly we all can't get passed the fact that apparently they let twenty-four year olds adopt _other_ twenty-four year olds." Jessica said.

"Did you guys ever think that maybe they're not just adoptive parents and children, that maybe they're a cult, or a coven of models or something?" I ask.

Jessica gives me a strange look, "They told us they were a family, why would they lie about that?"

I guess she had a point, if they really were something else then surely they would have come up with a better cover story, one that was remotely believable.

As I continued to stare at them they all simultaneously turned their heads to stare at _me_! I have to say I was surprised, what on earth could cause them to pay little ol' me any mind? We had the world's most awkward staring contest, them with their weird black eyes, me with my weird brown eyes. After a couple of minutes, I'm proud to say I won, they all stood in unison and walked out the door, the most gorgeous losers in all of history.

I had to give Jessica credit, there was something distinctly homosexual about Edward, in the most attractive way. I think it just comes from being so very urbane in an atmosphere so very provincial.

After lunch I went to biology. I was so distracted by thoughts of Edward that I crashed into at least five people and fell into no less than three puddles. I wondered how normal people could manage thinking and walking at the same time, but this only served as further distraction and instead of walking into the building my class was in, I _walked into _the building my class was in, as in I walked into the outside wall.

"Are you okay?" Eric asked concerned.

"Eric," I said, annoyed, "Why don't you get hot or shut the hell up?"

"I'm really sorry Bella, I just wanted to make sure you didn't hurt yourself."

Man this kid was an asshole.

I walked into the building, properly this time. The first thing I noticed was that the tables here were very much like the tables we have back in Arizona. I guess high school lab tables don't change that much from place to place. Which gives me an idea for a company that sells lab tables individually catered to represent the location they're going to. For example, the ones going to Washington would be covered in the Starbucks logo and be constantly soggy while the ones for Arizona would be modeled after the Grand Canyon and be covered in thinly veiled racism. The next thing I noticed was the other people (that's generally how it goes, tables first, people second) and the fact that there were many of them. So many people that absolutely every chair in the room was occupied. Except for one. The one next to Edward Cullen. My knees went weak, no not in a sexist, sexist, girly, swooning way but in a sexist, girly, I'm-to-weak-to-even-function kind of way. I'm pretty smart so it only took me a few minutes of staring awestruck at the empty chair to realize that I would have to sit there since there was no other option. Not that if there was another option I would have chosen it, but I was still happy to be forced into this position.

I giddily headed toward the front of the room to introduce myself to the teacher. As I passed Edward he went rigid and looked at me with cold black eyes, his mouth was turned down and his eyebrows were in a frowning position, he looked to be furious with me. So preoccupied was I with processing Edward's facial expression and interpreting it that I tripped over what might have been a book in the aisle but was probably just air and did a face plant right in the middle of the room. I tried to get up nonchalantly so no one would notice, but my attempt failed and I ended up having to drag myself to the teacher whose pant leg I used to hoist myself up into a sitting position and, getting a good grip on his desk, pulled myself up the rest of the way.

"I am Bella Swan," I said with a flourish. Edward was still throwing icepicks at me with his eyes.

"I'm Mr. Banner," the teacher said. Really, a scientist named Mr. Banner? Bet I wouldn't like it when he's angry.

Mr. Banner looked around the room trying to find me a place to sit, "Uh…" he said, the realizing the only open spot was right next to Edward, "Miss Swan you may have a seat over there next to the odd boy starring at you homicidally."

Naturally I was a bit off put by Edward's unsolicited malicious behavior, but I was sure once I got to know him better I wouldn't mind it. I sat down next to him keeping my eyes on the desk. Maybe it was my smell that had offended him, perhaps I picked up some of my dad's scent whilst in the communal bathroom. I surreptitiously sniffed my hair, it smelled of strawberries, so maybe.

Mr. Banner started to teach the class oddly unconcerned with my inability to figure out what was wrong with me. Edward was a mystery. He sat on the edge of his seat as far from me as possible clearly straining against the urge to rip my throat out. Usually people weren't this upset by me until I'd said at least one thing to them.

On the bright side, Edward was even more good looking up close.

When the bell rang Edward bolted inhumanly fast out the door. What a meanie, it wasn't fair. Why was _I_ stuck with a lab partner who could only look at me with angry eyes? He should be grateful, it was the end of the year and he _still_ didn't have a lab partner. He probably always had to be in the awkward three person group that the teacher would always refer to as a threesome so you can't help but spend the whole class thinking about what it would be like to have sex with the people you're working with inside of a giant beaker, your passion like a fiery Bunsen burner heating up the distilled water of your lust. At least, that's how it always was for me. That…that _boy_ should be on his hands and knees worshipping the ground I walk on!

Speaking of boys who would worship the ground I walk on, a male voice behind me said, "Aren't you Isabella Swan?"

I looked and found that the male voice had come from a male human, one not nearly as hot as Edward and his siblings. I didn't much care for people not as hot as Edward and his siblings but this boy was smiling at me in a friendly way (as opposed to another way, I guess) and he clearly didn't think I smelled like dad bathroom so I thought I'd give him a chance.

"Bella, actually." I corrected him, "It's short for Isabella. Because I'm a very busy person and I don't have time to run around saying Isabella all day."

He tilted his head to the side, he looked kind of like the lead singer of Rascal Flatts but younger and slightly less squirly, "But it's your own name, why would you run around saying it all day?"

"Um, I think you just answered your own question. It's _my_ name. Who else's name would I want to say?"

His smile turned suave. Not really suave, but like in a movie when one of those actors who isn't attractive but is considerd funny is trying to impress a girl so they give them their best sexah grin and the audience laughs because the girl is so not going to be impressed, "Well," he said, "My name is Mike."

"Hi, Mike," I said because it was the most boring thing I could think to say.

"Do you need help getting to your next class?" he asked.

"I'm going to gym, I think I can find it," I answered before I realized he probably meant actual physical help getting to my next class, in which case the answer was, yes, most definitely.

"That's my class too!" He seemed thrilled, he all but jumped up and down clapping his hands with glee. I shook my head, this doofus actually thinks he has a shot with me. I have some news for him, nice guys finish last. With me, nice guys don't even get passed the starting gates. Nice guys are shot in the foot when the start gun is fired. He wasn't nearly as handsome as Edward (no duh) but he also wasn't nearly as repulsive as Eric so I let him walk me to class. I even let him talk on the way there and he told me about his childhood in California and a lot of other filler crap that doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

When we arrived at the gym Mike turned to me with his big puppy dog eyes, "I just want to let you know that I've been fantasizing about you ever since I saw you in English class this morning and I am determined to dedicate the rest of my life to wooing you."

Huh, I didn't remember him being in my English class. Honestly, I could barely remember his name. Something boring and generic…Monty…Micky…Sinbad. I don't know. But I thought it would be funny to watch him chase me for the next couple of books, like a dog chasing its own tail, so I smiled at him in a way that seemed to say "Try hard enough and you can win me, big boy," while what I was really thinking was _Not a snowball's chance in hell, Sinbad_.

At Forks high school they made you take P.E. all four years. This was literally hell on earth. God designed this godforsaken school just to punish me. Why, God, why? Why do you care about me so much? Why did you invent sports and then give me legs of no more use than jelly beans? Well, I guess jelly beans have more use because you can eat them. But you could also eat my legs and that would give you more substance than a jelly bean so maybe my legs were more useful than a jelly bean, but they were just as good at running.

I made it through gym with only a few minor injuries, to myself. One other kid had to be sent to the hospital. I'm not very strong, but I'm persistent, so when I mistook his head for the tennis ball I just kept hitting it and wondering why it wasn't bouncing away.

After gym I headed back to the main office to turn in some paperwork I forgot to mention earlier. I opened the door and immediately saw Edward. Well, I immediately saw the end table with some magazines on it, then I saw there were three people in the room, then I saw one of them was Edward.

"There's no way for me to transfer out of Biology?" he was saying.

The secretary at the desk said, "Not this late in the school year, that's kind of an odd request."

"What if I told you that if I didn't transfer out right now I was going to massacre everyone in that room?"

The secretary shook her head and I kind of wondered why she had the final say on everyone's enrollment, "If I break the rules for you, I'll have to break the rules for everybody."

A fair point, maybe, but really who else was going to try and transfer with only a month or two left in the year?

Suddenly Edward turned to face me. The beauty of his hate-filled, soulless black eyes took my breath away.

"Nevermind," Edward said to the secretary. In my opinion if I really felt I'd commit mass murder if left in a class I'd try a bit harder to be taken out of it. But Edward just ran inhumanly fast past me and out the door.

I handed the secretary my paperwork.

"How was your first day?" She asked me.

"Like you care!" I shouted, then stomped out of the building, slamming the door behind me.


	3. Chapter 2: Open Book

Chapter 2: Open Book

The next day was better because I was able to anticipate how awful it would be based on my previous day's experience where everyone liked me and wanted to be my friend except for one person. On this day Mike followed me around from class to class like a dog. I never really liked dogs and hadn't planned on getting one, but now I was saddled with this one I'd have to remember to buy some treats to encourage good behavior. Also, it was clear that Jessica was in love with Mike despite him being in puppy love with me, so I'd have to deal with that which would be hard because being politic is important in a town as small as this, and I've never had much tact, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that. But these were far from the worst of my problems for you see Edward wasn't in school at all. Wait—he hated me, it was awesome that he wasn't in school. But! What if he wasn't in school _because_ he hated me? That seemed to be the most likely assumption. I know that if I were in his position, taking an immediate dislike toward a new kid at school I would probably throw away my high school education and future career opportunities just to avoid them. But I'd thought Edward would be better at future planning than me. I mean, it's pretty easy to be better than me at that, and, well, anything else.

To top all this off I also had to go grocery shopping after school because Charlie had apparently subsisted on air for the past five years, literally there was no food in his house and he had no cooking ability whatsoever. I was beginning to wonder if he had any abilities at all or if I took after him more than I realized.

At the end of the day I was waiting in my monstrous truck to get out of the parking lot when I spotted Edward's "family" driving in their silver Volvo. It was by far the nicest car in the parking lot, but it was a Volvo, I mean, come on, even I can tell you that Volvo's are the least cool car out there. As soon as you hear the word "Volvo" you immediately think of moms, not your mom, necessarily, but moms in general. And let me tell you what, it is not fun getting it on in the back seat remembering "I'm about to give up my V-card in a Volvo" and being hit with a vivid mental image of mom jeans. (Btw, I'm a virgin still.) Anyway, back to Edward's family who I spotted in their save and secure Volvo I noticed for the first time they were actually closed. They were so hot that naturally my imagination had automatically made them naked in my head. They were dressed very nicely in close that hinted at designer origins, whatever the hell that means. I realized that with their subtly fancy car, subtly fancy clothing, and reluctance to interact with any other students, it was like they were trying extra hard to blend in, but give just enough clues so that a passerby would be able to guess that maybe they were hiding something, something like the fact they were soulless models.

Suddenly I realized I'd been fixating on the Cullens so long that I'd finished the grocery shopping, put away all the groceries, and grilled a steak without even noticing. I headed up the stairs and turned on my computer to check my email. I used AOL, because that's what all us youthful teenagers use.

I had three emails, all from my mom. They say that the greater the percentage of your messages are from your mom, the cooler you are, you know. So I was damn cool. I read the first message, "Bella," my mother wrote… "Write me as soon as you get in" Not, perhaps the most natural way to write an email, especially for a woman I've already explained to you is scatterbrained and "artsy" "Is it raining?" Duh, mom, you lived here longer than I have. Of course it's raining. But I will continue to mention every other paragraph in case you or the reader forgets it rains here a bloody lot, "I miss you already. I'm almost finished packing for Florida, but I can't find my pink blouse. Do you know where I put it? Phil says hi. Mom."

Mom? Oh, she means Renee.

I quickly hit the reply and, using my two pointer fingers, slowly punched in TLDR and then clicked send. The next email, also from Renee, was titled "URGENT! RESPOND IMMIDETLU" Immidetlu? What does that mean? I clicked open and read it. Renee had written, "Why haven't you emailed me yet? Didn't you read my last message? I can't find my pink blouse! THE PINK ONE! I think the government stole it!"

I sighed and shook my head, moving on the final message, "Bella, if you haven't responded to this message by five thirty tonight, I'm assuming the government got you as well as my pink blouse. Phil and I are gearing up to storm the CIA headquarters. We're on our way, sweetie, don't worry. I won't let them brain wash you, or my pink blouse."

I looked at the clock it was four o'clock. I started my response,

"Mom, your pink blouse is in the closet with the rest of your blouses. Everything is awesome here. Of course it's raining, you stupid bitch. School isn't bad, just a little repetitive (perhaps not a good sign, since I've only been two days.) I met some kids who sit next to me in lunch no matter how many times I switch tables. More importantly I saw some hot kids who, at best don't seem to care at me, and at worst loath me with a fiery passion, I think it's best to focus on that. Dad bought me a truck, can you believe it? It's a beast and I'm already planning my rampage. Those other cars better watch out, they are toast. I miss you too but I'm not going to check my email all the time, I love you and stuff I guess, I'll talk to ya when I talk to ya (and not a second before :(

Luckily it was just before five thirty when I finished and sent the message off.

I decided to read _Wuthering Heights_ again for the dramatic irony and was doing that when Charlie got home. When I heard his stupid cruiser pull into the driveway I ran downstairs and opened the front door for him.

"Hello, Father" I said, handing him his glass of scotch and taking his coat. He hung up his gun belt and stepped out of his boots while I flitted around the kitchen happily portraying an example of traditional gender roles that I know will be received with great approval by both society and critics alike. I remembered that as a kid, Charlie used to hide his guns from me (at least, after he found the mass squirrel grave I'd created in the back yard) but now he just left them out in the open. I guess he figured I wasn't stupid enough to shoot myself by accident—a mistake—or depressed enough to do it on purpose—another mistake.

"What's for dinner?" Charlie asked. My mom had been an "imaginative" cook, meaning she fucking sucked, and I was surprised and sad my dad could remember that far back, I thought the Alzheimer's would have set in by now. Though, of course, he could be weary of _my _cooking, because, let's face it, me and knives should never be in the same room.

"Steak and potatoes, cause, you know, we're manly men," I informed him.

Charlie clearly felt awkward standing in the kitchen doing nothing while I slaved away over a hot stove so he offered to help. Just kidding of course, he went into the other room and watched TV.

I called him in for dinner.

"Smells good, Bell," he said.

"Thanks," I said, "But this isn't a very interesting or important or well-written scene."

Charlie nodded in agreement, "Want to end it?" he asked.

I shook my head in disagreement, "I want this to be a _looonnnggg_ book, so no."

We sat in silence for a while.

"Soo…"Charlie said, "Whadjou wanna talk about?"

I shrugged, "You could ask me about school."

"I don't really care."

"Well, I've made some friends. One is a girl named Jessica. And one is a dog named Mike."

Charlie's ears perked up, "Mike Newton? Let me give some exposition about him that might come in handy for the third or fourth book. He's a nice kid and his dad owns the sporting goods store in town. He makes a good living off the backpackers who come through here to feed the giant man eating bears."

"Whatever, Dad, you didn't let me finish," I hiss, "I also have _not_ made friends with the hottest kids in school. Do you know the Cullen family?"

"Dr. Cullen's family?"

I roll my eyes, "Yeah, are Cullen family's abundant in this town?"

"Dr. Cullen's a great man."

I frown, "Well his kids don't fit in well at school at all. I think they're models, it's the only explanation that makes sense."

Dad held up his hands and chuckled, "Ho, ho, ho, Bells, let's not get crazy here, I don't think they're models. They are just exceptionally pale, good looking, smart, super-fast, super strong, outsiders with weird eyes and pointy teeth and ice-cold, rock-hard skin. Totally normal."

"They're all very attractive." I pointed out.

"You don't have to tell me," Charlie laughed, "You should see the doctor," he whistled, "_Damn_, that boy's fine. I tell you what, Bells, if I were ten years younger and not so obviously unable to move on from your mom I would hit that. I would hit that good."

"Da-ad," I say making two syllables and giving him my best family sitcom stop being so silly face.

That night was quiet and I slept well.

The rest of the week was uneventful, so let me relate it to you in excruciating detail. Tuesday: My friends were nice to me, Edward wasn't in school. Wednesday: My friends invited me out to dinner after school, their treat, Edward wasn't in school. Thursday: My friends bought me presents, Edward wasn't in school. Friday: My friends carried me around from class to class shouting "Make way for Bella the Great" and playing fanfare on trumpets, Edward wasn't in school.

Edward wasn't in school all week. I watched for him every day. After school I drove around town in case I could spot him hanging out around the local diner or other town location that I'm sure is here. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was responsible for his extended absence (I sure hope that turns out to actually be the case or else, god forbid, I'll end up looking like and egotistical bitch.)

The weekend happened and I went back to school next Monday. In English Mike sat next to me, as always, and we had a pop quiz on _Wuthering Heights_ (I would very much appreciate it if you would compare my romance to the one in _Wuthering Heights_, because that relationship was famous…and healthy…I think.) I found the quiz very easy, because I'm smart and everything.

When I walked out of the building, Mike trailing at my heels, I was hit in the face by wet, white stuff.

"Ew," I said.

"Wow," Mike said in monotone, "It's snowing."

"Ew," I repeated.

"You don't like the snow?" Mike asked, amazed that the girl raised in Arizona was less than fond of cold weather.

"No. That means it's too cold for rain," I explained to him, as his dog mind might not be privy to the intricacies of meteorology as mine is.

Mike was about to ask me another inane question when he was smacked hard in the back of the head by a hard ball of snow and ice. I ran away.

I barrel rolled into the cafeteria to avoid the flying mush balls and got in line with mike and Jessica. They talked animatedly about the snow fight and I wondered why everyone who lived here, and had experienced snow before, were acting like little kids never before exposed to the stuff. One would think that growing up in a place where snow is not an irregularity people would appreciate the first snow of the year, but not go bonkers over it. Of course I live in Arizona, so what would I know about how normal people react to stuff. I looked at the Cullen's table out of habit (seriously, I've been at this school for a week and already I'm addicted to looking at the Cullens) and froze. There were five people there. Wait! One…two…three…four….yes, five people! (Or should I say five models, ;) I nearly passed out. Edward was here, I hadn't run him out of town after all.

Jessica, Mike, and I sat down at our usual table. I stared at the Cullens. They were talking and laughing, at my expense no doubt. I can't imagine they would be thinking about anything else. Edward wasn't glaring at me though. My heart sank with disappointment.

I was shaking in my boots when I entered the biology room, and not just from the snow. How could I face Edward again? After he looked at me funny the first day? How do you move on from that?

I sat down timidly next to him wishing I was anywhere else right now, like the cafeteria staring at him from afar.

"My name is Edward Cullen," I heard a musical voice next me say.

My mind was spinning in confusion. Who could be saying that?

"I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week, you must be Bella Swan."

I turned my head and saw it was Edward Cullen speaking. What was he doing? He hated me.

"H-how do you know my name?"

He laughed softly, "Oh, I think everyone knows your name, Bella. We've all been waiting for you."

I knew it! I knew it! I do a little dance inside my head because I was right about Forks caring for naught but me.

"No, I meant why did you call me Bella?"

He seemed confused, but maybe that was just me, "Do you prefer Isabella?"

"No, But I think Charlie must call me Isabella behind my back, the two faced son of a bitch. Everyone has called me Isabella upon first meeting me."

"Oh," he let it drop.

It was highly suspicious. Actually, I'd been telling people to call me Bella for a week now so it was really unremarkable.

Then the teacher started to do his job. He handed out some slides for us to examine. Our lab sounded very fancy and advanced but I was a genius so I knew exactly how to do it.

"Ladies first, partner," Edward asked with a crooked smile leaving me to wonder why he'd suddenly become a cowboy.

I glanced at the microscope, "Prophase," I said like a pro-scientist.

"Let me check that," Edward said. Kinda douchy, sure, but mostly hot.

It turned out I was right. Not to be beat, Edward diagnosed the next slide without even needing the aid of a microscope. Our show-off war escalated until we were just shouting fancy words at each other.

Me, "Deoxyribonucleic acid!"

Edward, "Adiabatic system!"

Me, "Troposphere!"

Edward, "Acatalepsy!"

By the end of class we were both acutely aware of the other's impressive intelligence. I was beginning to think that we were soul mates or something. But at the end of class Edward ran out of the room as quick as he could again. I stared after him stunned. Mike walked with me to gym, talking the whole time but I didn't listen. During gym he was on my team and he covered my position for me. Did he understand how much like a dog he acted? Did I understand that just because the whole day happened I don't have to talk about it? Did I understand the concept of a time jump and that it's as easy as

The rain was just a mist as I walked to the parking lot. I was really glad that the weather had warmed up and all the snow was gone. Once inside my all-powerful pickup truck I started it and looked around to see if there was a car behind me I could run over. I spotted Edward at his Volvo staring at me. Well, that was creepy. I mean, that was sweet, very


	4. Chapter 3: Phenomenon

Chapter 3: Phenomenon

Phenomenon, na naaa nanana, na nana na!

When I opened my eyes in the morning something was different. It was the light. With my eyelids no longer closed there was much more light going into my pupils. What a phenomenon! Also of note the air outside my window wasn't obscured by fog. Maybe the _real_ phenomenon was that I had been transported back to Arizona by some benevolent alien species. I ran to my window to look out it and my heart fell out of my chest and plopped onto the floor. No, not because I had been probed by the aliens and not stitched back up quite enough, but metaphorically. It had snowed overnight and now there was snow _everywhere_. It would take a lot of vacuum bags to clean this mess up. And there was ice everywhere, surely I would fall and break my neck today (don't worry, I won't. And even if I did I will continue writing this story long after I'm dead (or at least long after I'm _un_dead, geddit? geddit? huh, huh?)).

Charlie had left for work before I got downstairs. In a lot of ways living with Charlie was like having my own place, if by having your own place you mean living with a neglectful parent that will no doubt create massive issues for you in your adult life, perhaps giving you some sort of extreme co-dependence. Instead of being sad about my loneliness, I reveled in it, because girls with daddy issues are hot, almost as hot as guys who secretly watch you in your sleep, determine what you can and can't do (and who you can and can't do it with), and with-hold sex and immortality. I threw down a quick bowl of cereal and orange juice and didn't bother to clean it up before I left for school (maybe that would get me some attention from Daddy, dearest.)

I was excited to go to school (not to learn, cause honestly what has a good education ever done for anybody? and not to see my friends who actually like me, cause let's face it, anyone who would actually like me has got to be a serious loser) because I'd see Edward Cullen there. And that was very, very stupid. I should be avoiding Edward after my embarrassing display yesterday. I mean, I should be avoiding Edward because he looked at me like he wanted to slash my throat and drain me of blood, tried to switch out of Biology to get away from me, and skipped school for a week to avoid me, then came back with different eyes and acted like nothing had happened. His league and my league were in totally different spheres of crazy. But I couldn't hope that someday, if I worked really, _really_, hard Edward and I would be united in the most extraordinary koo-koo land of them all.

While driving to school I had to distract myself from thoughts of Edward. It's not a good example to young girls to show a female heroine who only thinks about boys. So I thought about Mike and Eric and the obvious difference in how boys responded to me here than in Phoenix. It could be that the boys in Phoenix had watched me pass through all the awkward stages of puberty and still thought of me that way. Or it could be that I wasn't the main character in a teen romance novel back then. Or, perhaps most likely, it was the boob-job I had during my layover in Seattle. Whatever the reason, having all the boys in town love me was a real bummer. I want a tragic life, dammit!

For some reason my truck handled the wickedly wintery conditions on the road like a pro. I had no problems, which I found perturbing. Maybe this was some kind of weird phenomenon, maybe trucks in the fifties were built with the ability to adapt to their surroundings like chameleons.

When I got out of my truck at school I looked at my tires and saw Charlie had put on snow chains. Wow, I should have noticed that earlier. Also, how early did Charlie wake up so he could get ready, eat breakfast, perform car maintenance, and be out of the house before I woke up? He must really want to avoid contact with me. I smiled as I felt the overwhelming self-loathing, insecurity, and need for male approval bubbling up inside me.

I was standing in the parking lot, trying to hold back a wave of tears brought on by the phenomenal appearance of snow chains on my truck, when I heard and odd noise.

I saw several things simultaneously (an impressive feat for someone of my observational prowess.) Nothing was moving in slow motion the way it does in the movies (except maybe the plot…yeah…) The first thing I noticed was Edward Cullen, of course, standing several cars down from me looking like an Abercrombie model (I wondered why he wasn't cold, standing shirtless in the snow.) The second thing I noticed was Edward Cullen, staring at me half like a stalker, half like a rapist. The third thing I noticed was Edward Cullen's eyes were a different shade of yellow today. And the fourth thing I noticed was a giant, juggernaut van, hurtling toward me, about to crush me against my own killer truck. Oh the irony. I didn't even have time to imagine what my obituary would say, or the glory of my funeral service.

Then something shoved me out of the way and I fell to the ground hitting my head on the hard pavement. Hey! I heard the van hit the back end of my truck but it never hit me. Hey!

I looked up to see what had stopped my tragic demise and was surprised to find Edward Cullen looking down at me. He had one arm wrapped around my waste (You go girl! Said the sassy gay friend voice in my head) and one arm out-stretched holding the van at bay. The van's side had crumpled around his hand. We stared at each other awkwardly.

I chuckled nervously, "Hehe, of all the near death experiences, in all the world, you walked into mine."

And with that phenomenal display of lame-itude Edward sprinted off.

It took a good thirty seconds for the rest of the students in the parking lot to care enough to come over and see if I was okay.

"Are you okay, Isabella?" somebody asked. Probably Eric, what a dick-bag, he still can't grasp the concept of nick names. I really need to ditch these loser friends.

I sat up and looked around, my head throbbing. There were many people gathered around the scene of the accident, tears streaming down their faces. Was this all for me? Were they really so concerned for my wellbeing that they would cry at the thought of me being crushed under a van?

"Get Tyler out of the van!" someone shouted.

What, Tyler? Who's Tyler?

Tyler, it turned out, was the driver of the van. He had hit his head on the steering wheel when the van crashed into Edward's hand and was bleeding profusely. I could see his eyes rolling back into his head.

The ambulance arrived and some students tried to direct them frantically to the seizing Tyler but they brushed past briskly.

"Got to get to Bella," they said, seriously, "She's the main character here."

Some students protested, but mostly they understood.

They put me in a stupid neck brace to possibly save my life or something, but I was pissed off because between that and the snow-boots, I couldn't look like a bigger doofus.

They brought me to the hospital and put me on a bed. As soon as I had a second alone I ripped off the neck brace because screw my spinal cord I need to look hot as hell while I'm in the emergency room. Well aren't I just the most believable teenager, more concerned about looks than health. They wheeled in another person next to me. I recognized Tyler from my Government class under a mess of bloody bandages. He looked bad, he should get those bandages off, the red and white were totally out of season. He looked at me with dying eyes, and breathed out painfully, "Bella, I'm sorry."

I ignored him and looked at the EMTs who had brought him in, "Um, I'm pretty sure this is a private room."

The EMTs had the audacity to ignore me and left the room to go save other people's lives or something. Douchebags.

"Sorry, iBella, eggs," he said, the head trauma really starting to show.

I stopped talking to him because with this amount of brain damage he could do something crazy, like fall in love with me and ask me to the prom.

A little while later they wheeled me away to X-ray my head. They told me there was clearly something wrong with my brain, but it wasn't from the fall. They put be back in the ER where I was harassed by Tyler's apologies. Well, I assume they were apologies, because he wasn't really making much sense anymore. I tried to tune him out.

"Is she sleeping?" a musical voice asked. My eyes flew open.

Edward was standing at the foot of my bed.

"I'm not sleeping," I told him.

"Oh, sorry, I'll come back later then," he started to leave.

"Wait! Don't go!" I screamed, panicked.

Edward stopped, looked at me confused, then shrugged deciding to just go with it.

"So what's the verdict?" he asked.

"It's _going_ to be guilty when I sue this motherfucker for everything he's worth," I shot a fierce glare at Tyler."

"I mean, how are you feeling?" he elaborated.

Still glaring at Tyler I replied, "Physically I'm fine, but emotionally…I feel like I'm out a million dollars, maybe even two hundred and fifty million dollars."

Tyler started spasming and they wheeled him out of the room.

With the patient in need safely out of the way, the best doctor in the hospital came around the corner. The best doctor, was of course, Edward Cullen's "dad," and Edward Cullen's "dad" was, of course, super pale and superhot, hotter than any doctor I'd ever seen (except maybe on Grey's Anatomy.)

"So, Miss Swan," Dr. Cullen said , "how are you feeling?"

I couldn't look away from his eyes. What were the chances that a family of foster children, completely unrelated to each other would all have the same strange, yellow-colored irises? Maybe they all had some sort of crazy disease they picked up while walking the runway in some exotic location like New Guinea or something.

"I'm fine," I told him.

"Okay, your father's in the waiting room, run along now."

I hopped off the stretcher and immediately collapsed to the ground. Dr. Cullen looked at me with mild concern.

"Don't worry," I said, "It's not from my head."

"Well, take some Tylenol for the pain," he said.

"It doesn't hurt that bad," I told him.

"It sounds like you were lucky."

"Lucky Edward was able to run across the parking lot at lightning fast speed and stop a moving vehicle with his bare hands—excuse me, bare _hand_."

"Erm…yes," Dr. Cullen said, suddenly engrossed in his papers, "Come back if you have any dizziness or sudden blindness."

I struggled to stand up then stumbled away down the hallway. I can really see why Dr. Cullen is the best, I mean, that Tylenol thing was genius. And I never would have thought to go to the hospital for sudden blindness.

Before I reached the waiting room Edward pulled me aside, "Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked.

"Edward," I said, "You can talk to me for _all _ the minutes."

"I just wanted to clear a few things up. I was standing right next to you before the van hit, I didn't sprint across the whole parking lot, I mean, hehe, that's crazy, right?"

I shook my head, "No…I'm acutely aware of exactly where you are at all times, so I know you were across the parking lot."

"Well you hit your head so you don't know anything."

"Even if you were standing right next to me that doesn't explain how you stopped the van with your hand," I pointed out.

"That was totally normal."

I raised an eyebrow, "And how did you get strong enough to stop a runaway van with one hand?"

"Pillates?"

I shook my head.

"Plot hole?"

He had me there.

"Why did you even bother?" I asked frigidly.

"Bother what?"

"Saving me?"

"I don't know!" he threw up his hands, "And believe me when I tell you no one reading this will know either!"

He turned and walked away from me.

I was so angry I felt dizzy and suddenly couldn't see. A few minutes, or maybe a few hours I really had no sense of time anymore, passed and my senses returned to me, good as they ever were, and I headed out to the waiting room. I didn't see my dad there in the throngs of high school students all truly concerned for my health. I found a note though, left on a chair.

_B, dr says ur alright so im going to head back to work. dont cook steak for dinner again. it was gross last night, D._

When I got home I had to call my mom and tell her I was alright. She kept pleading for me to go home but I didn't really care what she wanted anymore because I had a new obsession, Edward. Who was he? Where did he come from? With what modeling agency was he signed? And would he ever love me? I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't because my head hurt too much. At first I was at a loss for what to do, then I remembered Dr. Cullen's advice and took some Tylenol. It really did help. I drifted off to sleep.

That was the first night I dreamed of Edward Cullen.

It was also the first night I dreamed of Bela Lugosi, and Christopher Lee, and Bram Stoker, and Anne Rice, but that was probably totally unrealated.


	5. Chapter 4: Invitations

Chapter 4: Invitations

In my dream it was very dark and what dim light there was seemed to be radiating from Edwards skin, like there were thousands of little diamonds covering his skin that light was glinting off. Crazy, right? That would be soooooooooooooo stupid in real life. He was walking away from me which I thought was lame, because if I'm going to have a dream about Edward Cullen we sure as hell better be doing more than _walking._ But no matter how many times I cat called him or gestured seductively toward my vagina, he just kept walking away. Lame dream, I know, I kind of wish I hadn't brought it up, but too late now.

The month that followed the accident was uneasy, tense, and at first embarrassing, much like this transition. To my dismay, I found myself the center of attention for the rest of the week. No, seriously, I hate it when people try to make me feel better or treat me good, it's the worst, am I right? Huh? Huh? Tyler was the worst (you may remember that he's the one who almost ran me over with my van, but probably not because no one remembers the person who _almost_ climbed Mt. Everest, or who _almost _stopped the Twilight series from happening.) Tyler kept following me around everywhere trying to make up for almost hitting me with his van. I tried to explain to him it was an accident, I know he didn't intentionally mean to hit me, to which he bit his lip, looked at the ground and said, "Heh, heh…yeah…."

No one seemed concerned about Edward. No matter how many times I told them he stopped the van with his _hand_ they _still_ only asked me if I was sure my head felt alright. I realized they must just not be as obsessed with him as I was, which made me mad because he's a beautiful creature and EVERYONE should be obsessed with him! (At least until the movies come out and everyone like's Taylor Lautner's abs better.) Making me sad, was the fact that Edward himself didn't seemed at all concerned for me. The entire school was worried about me and there were three perfectly nice boys in love with me (Tyler's in love with me now) which may sound like I have it pretty good until you learn that one of those three boys was not Edward Cullen. He didn't really talk to me in school, which he never really did before except that one day. There could be only one answer: he wished he'd never saved me and that I was dead as doornails right now. I sighed, was there no end to his perfection?

I watched him from a distance because I couldn't get too close. If only I knew where he "lived" so I could sit in the window outside his room and watch him sleep. If only I had a better understanding of irony.

Let's see…what else important happened that I should tell you about… Well, the snow washed away, slipperiness no longer being dramatically convenient. The girl's choice dance happened but I didn't go because dancing was far outside my range of abilities (much like writing.) Jessica asked me if she could ask Mike and I said, "Hell yes! Get this dog-boy off my back!" Which I guess means Mike is now a dog, boy, monkey hybrid, which is interesting. But Mike, of course, asked me, and so did Eric, and Tyler. I told them all to fuck off, which they misinterpreted as "You still have a chance" if their Twitter feeds are to be believed. I told Mike to go out with Jessica, he said, "Alright, if it will make you love me more." I said it wouldn't. I told Eric he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of EVER getting a girlfriend. And I told Tyler that if he really wanted me to like him he would have done some serious damage with his van, then I'd know he really loved me.

And that about brings me to today, when Edward looked at me!

I looked back at him, completely stunned that he would ever notice me again after deciding (too late, mind you) my life wasn't worth saving. And then he did the one thing more surprising—he _spoke_. His voice sounded so familiar, like I'd been listening to it my entire life instead of for just a couple weeks, and a bunch of other cliché's that signify we're soul mates. And those first words he spoke to me in a month were the most poetic of all.

He looked deep into my eyes, parted his perfectly curved lips and with one sweet breath said, "The Krebs Cycle."

My heart stopped. Then I realized he wasn't talking to me, he was just answering a question the teacher had asked. My heart started up again despondently.

After class though he spoke to me, for realsies this time, "Bella," he said.

"Yes, Edward?" I sighed leaning toward him and batting my eyelashes, "Are you talking to me again?"

"Not really."

I pouted though on the inside I was thinking about my dad and how he was never really talking to me either and how if I could get Edward to fall in love with me it would be almost like getting my dad to love me.

"Why are you so mean to me?" I inquired, hoping he would say what Charlie always did ("Bella, if only you could be a little bit better then I'd love you.)

But instead he said, "It's better if we're not friends, trust me."

My eyes narrowed. I'd heard _that_ before (not from my dad, but from the public at large.)

"It's too bad you didn't figure that out earlier," I hissed through my teeth. "You could have saved yourself all this regret."

Edward was confused, "What regret?"

"For not letting the van squish me."

Edward raised his eyebrow, "You really think I regret saving your life?"

I could see where his incredulity came from, I mean it was kind of jumping the shark to think he wanted me dead just because he hadn't talked to me for a couple days. But the assumption made sense, you'd just have to be in my head to get it. Oh, wait…

"I _know _ you do," I hissed, which is hard to do when not one word has an 's' in it.

"You don't know anything!"

Well, he had me there.

"Neither does your mom!" I snapped, then looked away, arms crossed frowning.

Gym was brutal. We were playing basketball now. My team passed me the ball a lot, which was good, but by pass I mean they pelted me with the ball while calling me names, which was not quite as good.

It was still raining.

As I prepared dinner—enchiladas—I thought about Edward Cullen. It was fine if he didn't want to be friends with me. I could leave him alone for a year and then get a scholarship to Hawaii University and live out the rest of my life bummin' around on the beach. Because if there's one place where they like pale people more than Washington State, it's Hawaii.

Charlie came into the kitchen. He seemed suspicious when he smelled the green peppers. I couldn't blame him—green peppers killed his family when he was a baby (I'm pretty sure.)

We sat down to eat, "Dad?" I said.

"I'm going to Seattle a week from next Saturday."

He looked like he wanted to ask a lot of parent-y questions about where I'd stop for gas and if I would get lost and mugged alone in the big city, so I quickly added, "Don't worry, this plot point won't go anywhere."

Dad shrugged, "Whatever."

With half an enchilada left on his plate he stood and walked into the next room. A couple seconds later I got a text from him: _ddnt like the chiladas. dont make them again, k? watching football now._

Oh why didn't Edward like me!? I ran to my room crying.

The next morning as I was getting out of my truck I dropped my keys into a puddle just for shits and giggles. I reached down to get them out but before I could grab them something white zoomed down and snatched them up.

I looked up and saw Edward holding my keys out for me to take.

"How do you_ do_ that?" I asked him.

"Do what?" he asked as I took my keys.

"Appear out of thin air."

"I'm a vampire."

Maybe it was some sort of training models got. Maybe he knew kung fu. I saw a kung fu movie once. It was pretty bad. Nobody even killed themselves in the name of love. They were all worried about honor and shame and crap like that.

I scowled at him, projecting my annoyance at martial arts at his forehead, "So you _are _trying to irritate me to death," I accused.

"Bella, you are utterly absurd," he told me, which was the nicest thing he ever said to me and I was about to offer him a quickie in my truck bed before I remembered that I was supposed to ignore him until I could run away to Hawaii.

I started to walk away, trying to keep thoughts of his naughty parts out of my head.

"Wait," he called after me, "I'm sorry, I was being rude."

I stopped in my tracks, turning fiercely to face him. I looked him hard right in the eye, "Edward Cullen," I hissed, "Don't you ever, and I mean _ever, _apologize to me for being rude again!"

Satisfied that he knew I was being serious, I continued onward to class.

"I wanted to ask you something," he announced.

"Do you have multiple personalities or something?" asked him, unable to keep up with his constant mood swings.

"Just everybody's voices in my head."

"Well, what do you want?" I was growing impatient. If a person can really learn from history then he was about to ask me to the girl's choice dance like all the other boys in school. I couldn't wait to say to him yes, and to say to all the other boys once and for all that they just weren't pale enough for me.

"Will you let me drive to Seattle a week from Saturday?"

Well, wasn't this a surprise. Mostly because I'd been expecting an invite to the dance, and a little bit because the only person I'd told was my dad the night before and I was almost positive that he and Edward didn't talk regularly.

"No," I said, remembering how he hated me so much he wished I'd been run over by a van.

"Bella.." he gave me a look like I was a misbehaving child.

"Okay, you can."

As he walked away I smiled wistfully. Every girl should be so lucky to have an Edward Cullen in their life.


	6. Chapter 5: Blood Type

Chapter 5: Blood Type

It was still raining.


	7. Chapter 5 Part II: Blood Type Part II

Chapter 5: Blood Type

I got to English class late.

"Thank you for joining us, Miss Swan," the teacher said in a grateful tone, "We were all terrified we'd have to go on with class without you. I was honestly thinking we'd have to cancel."

I sat down. I was so busy thinking about Edward it took me nearly the whole class to realize Mike wasn't curled up at my feet like usual. Odd…I wondered if he too had decided he hated me so much he would throw away his high school diploma to avoid me. But I figured he was probably just lost and I'd have to put up posters around town: "Missing Boy, white coat, yellow hair, answers to Mike…." Crap. I couldn't remember his last name. It turned out to be a nonissue though, because he met me at the door as per usual.

"I'm going to have to get you a leash," I told him.

He cocked his head and gave me a quizzical look, "Huhn?" he said like Scooby-doo.

I rubbed him behind the ears, even though I could tell he was wishing I'd rub him somewhere else. But I wasn't going to rub his belly this early in the day.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. I spent it debating whether Edward had actually been nice to me or if I'd imagined the whole thing. One time, freshmen year, I had a short but torrid romance with an exchange student from Bangladesh named Kevin, but it turned out I'd just been eating my mom's "special cookies" and Kevin was just a stuffed bear wearing the Mickey-mouse ears I got in Disney and a baby towel as a cape. So I knew from experience that you can never be too careful when making sure your romances aren't just elaborate hallucinations.

I walked into the cafeteria with Jessica who was blabbering incessantly about inane teenager stuff, didn't she understand I was way too mature for her juvenile gossip? Then my heart fell, Edward wasn't at his normal table! I interrupted her, "Edward isn't sitting with his family!"

"Yeah," Jessica said, sounding annoyed but I don't really care how she feels, "He's sitting over there staring at _you_, of all people."

I looked to where she'd motioned and was stunned to see Edward sitting at a table by himself. I frowned. The fact that Jessica saw him before I did increased the possibility that he was real, but the fact he was no longer interacting with other people increased the possibility that I was just crazy. As I stared at maybe-real-Edward, he lifted his index finger and motioned for me to go over to him.

Jessica was incredulous, "Is he motioning for _you_?" she asked, incredulous.

I ignored her stupid question, completely entranced by Edward's entrancing gaze. In a daze I moved toward him, not even in control of my own movements anymore. It was like he was the Fonzi of Forks or something.

When I got to his table I leaned down to kiss him passionately but he held up an apple and I ended of biting into it by accident. As I stood there, awkwardly close to his perfect face, an apple in my mouth like a luau pig, he smiled mischievously.

"I got you over here with one finger," he said, "Imagine what I could do with five."

I imagined it alright. I bet with five fingers he could play a sickly sweet lullaby about our relationship on the piano.

"Why don't you sit with me today?" he gestured to the chair next to him and I sat down. He removed the apple from my mouth and sniffed the bite mark, licking his lips, but he didn't eat the apple.

"This is different," I observed.

"I figured that as long as I'm going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly," he said, flashing a grin at the camera like he'd been working on that line for a long time.

"As a model didn't you sell your soul to the devil a long time ago, though?"

"Literal hell, yes. But right now I'm speaking of a more metaphorical hell."

I stared at him blankly. Did he just switch to Spanish? I waited for him to say something that made sense. He didn't. There was a long, awkward pause. I placed one hand over my other hand and wiggled my thumbs,

"Awkward turtle." I said.

Edward stared at my hands like he wanted to eat them.

"It's not actually a turtle, you know," I pulled my hands away from each other to show him.

"Right, of course," he shook his head, "Your friends are angry I stole you away from them."

"They'll get over it," I said, not really caring if my friends were upset or not.

"I may not give you back," he said playfully, "I may slit your throat and drink all your blood right now."

I gulped.

"You look worried," he said, but he was wrong. I was insanely turned on by the idea of him abducting and killing me because all girls would find that idea incredibly romantic. I mean, that's what happens in Romeo and Juliet, right?

"I'm not worried," I told him, "I'm just surprised. What brought this on?"

"I told you, I got tired of trying to stay away from you, so I gave up."

I knew that all those late night calls to his cell phone and lurking around his car and classes would pay off. Girls, listen up, if you want a boyfriend just don't ever leave him alone. I am living proof that with enough persistence you will wear him down and eventually he'll succumb to your will!

"Cool," I said, "So we're friends now? Frenemies? More than friends? Friends with benefits? It's time to DTR."

"DTR…" he repeated the letters dubiously, "I am unfamiliar with this acronym."

Weird, it was like he was a hundred years old instead of seventeen or something. It must've been a model thing, he probably had people to text for him.

"Define the relationship." I told him, annoyed I had to say out all the words instead of just the first letters.

"Let's try to be friends," he said grinning, "But I'm warning you right now, I'm not a good friend for you to have?"

"Why?"

He shrugged, "I'm pretty flakey, I'm going to make you give me gas money if you want me to drive you anywhere, and I'll always show up to your parties totally wasted, cause a big scene, and piss everybody else off. Also I'll eat your food, borrow money with no intent of ever returning it, and focus entirely on my own needs instead of yours."

He sounded like my dad and there was a need to tame him clawing at the lining of my womb.

"It sounds perfect," I sighed wistfully.

"If you think that sounds perfect, you must be really dumb." he stated unapologetically.

"So as I'm an idiot, we can be friends?" I said summarizing our entire conversation.

"Yup," he said.

I looked down at the table, not really sure where to take this scene but not wanting to end the chapter too early.

"What are you thinking?" Edward asked.

"Oh no no," I scolded him, "If you want to know what's going through my mind you'll have to pay ten to twenty dollars for my novel, just like everyone else."

His jaw tightened, "What do you think I am, some silly teenaged girl?"

I blushed, "I've been trying to figure that out. What you are I mean. I know you're not a silly teenaged girl…I think."

He relaxed now that he knew I wasn't accusing him of being a _Twilight_ fan, "What are some of your theories?"

"Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker," I said.

"You think I'm a journalist, photographer, or billionaire playboy?"

I frowned, "No, I think you can fly, talk to spiders, and are a millionaire playboy," I said.

"Bella," he gets serious for a second, "What if I'm not the good guy?"

"That would be a twist!" I said, nodding in appreciation of the idea. But that kind of intricacy is a bit beyond me so I threw back at him, "What if you just think you're not the good guy?"

"I know what I am, Bella."

I figured he was pretty smart so he was probably right.

"Then why are you asking _me_?" I asked, balling my little hands into fists and scrunching my face up in rage.

Edward laughed, "Your boyfriend thinks I am being unpleasant to you."

"Would you just say one goddamn thing that makes sense!" I shouted in frustration. Great, now I've got to put a quarter in the swear jar, "You owe me a quarter," I told him.

"Now who doesn't make sense," he pointed out, "You're boyfriends debating whether or not he should break up our fight.

"I don't know who you're talking about," I said.

"Mike Newton."

That's his last name! "Mike? Gross," I said, "I'm not into bestiality. Well…at least not in this book."

"So Mike's not your boyfriend?"

"Duh! You don't have to be psychic to figure that one out," I rolled my eyes. Edward looked like I hurt his feelings.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" He asked after a while before I could do awkward moose.

"Oh, I only feast on human blood," I said jokingly.

"Oh my god! Me too!" he squealed in delight.

"Um…I was jk." I told him, then remembered he didn't understand chatspeak, "just kidding."

"Oh…me too," he recovered smoothly.

"Well wanna walk me to biology?" I asked.

"I'm not going," he said.

"Why not?"

"I'm skipping," he narrowed his eyes at me as if daring me to tell on him, "I told you I wasn't the good guy."

He lumbered off moodily very much like Batman.

I got to biology relatively unscathed. Mike said that if I wasn't going to sit with him he wasn't going to talk to me but unfortunately that lasted less than a minute. I sat down at my table and for a second was worried that Edward wasn't there, wondering if he was avoiding me again, then I remembered he was skipping.

The teacher came in, "Today we're going to stab ourselves and figure out our blood type!" he announces.

If it was a bit odd that Edward said he was the bad guy, drank blood, and then skipped the day we're working with blood in class, I didn't notice.

I felt my stomach go queasy. I'm not very good with blood. The teacher handed out some science stuff, including a safety pin he instructed us to open and prick our fingers with, defeating the purpose of a _safety_ pin, in my opinion. I admit that even I was surprised about this lab because most schools I know are really freaking paranoid when it comes to blood cause of all the diseases and stuff. But I was too excited to say anything. Prinking my finger made me feel like a Disney Princess. I was all ready to stab my finger with the unsafe pin when Mike stabbed his own finger and blood started spurting everywhere. Then I remembered I faint at the sight of blood. I could smell it, like a fountain of iron sprouting from Mikes paw. I felt queasy, sick, nauseous, woozy, unwell.

"Bella, are you alright?" Mr. Banner asked.

"I'm dying!" I screamed.

Mr. Banner looked around the room, "Can someone take Bella to the nurse please?" and then I heard him muttering, "Why does this always happen during this lab…"

Of course Mike volunteered, ugh, he wouldn't even give me space to take my dying breath.

Mike put his arm around my waist eagerly and helped me out of the class room.

Once we were out of sight of the classroom building I pushed Mike away and gave him a little slap for his forwardness.

"I just need to sit down for a minute," I told him, sitting down for a minute.

Then I heard a voice which wasn't Mikes, which couldn't have been Mikes because it was deep and male and musical and attractive, "Bella," it said.

I was so embarrassed for Edward to see me when I was on the verge of fainting like an idiot.

"I think she fainted," Mike said, "I don't know what happened, she didn't even stick her finger."

"Bella," Edward was right above me, I could feel his breath like a cold northern breeze on my face.

"No…" I groaned, "Go away…let me die in peace."

"You're not going to die!" Edward said determinedly, "Not while I'm around."

I heard Mike's faint objections and then I felt myself being lifted off the ground and carried.

"Hey!" Mike whined, "I'm supposed to take her to the nurse! And then she'll be so grateful for my kindness that she'll be my girlfriend!"

Edward snorted as he started walking away. Even Edward knew Mike didn't have a chance with me, either that or he knew 'grateful' wasn't really one of my go-to emotions.

Edward carried me easily, as if I weighed ten pounds instead of one hundred and ten (don't worry girls, just because I'm about twenty pounds lighter than the average woman, doesn't mean I'm not totally average and that you can't pretend I'm you, I snickered, yeah right.)

The motion of Edward's swaggerific gait was not helping my upset stomach.

"Put me down!" I demanded, afraid I would totally barf on him. He didn't listen to me, too much of a man to concern himself with my silly feminine wants. I remembered how he joked about kidnapping me back at lunch and wondered if maybe I'd misread him and he was (un)dead serious.

When we finally got to the nurses office Edward burst through the doors like a knight in shining armor, me slung over his shoulder like a pillaged concubine.

"She fainted in Biology," Edward announced, preempting the nurse's questions about what was the matter with me and why was he carrying me in a totally inappropriate manner.

"Mr. Banner's doing the do it yourself blood typing lab again? I keep telling him it's not a good idea, but he just doesn't listen," the nurse shook her head, "Just lie down, sweetie," she said, to me presumably, "The nausea will pass."

I knew that already, because I know everything already. My tummy was already starting to hurt a little less. Edward put me down on a cot and I rested.

"You can go back to class now," the nurse said, rather rudely in my opinion, "I'll get you an ice pack," the nurse said. I'm not sure how that would help me, but I let her go anyway so I could have some alone time with Edward.

"You were right," I told him.

"I know." he said.

"Ditching _is_ healthy."

"I know," he repeated, irritated. "You scared me there for a minute, I thought Mike had killed you and was dragging your dead body off to the woods. I've seen corpses with better coloring than you."

"Haha," I said, not really thinking it was funny. It was a fake laugh. A sarcastic one.

"No, seriously," he said seriously, "I've seen a lot of corpses. A lot."

"Mike must be mad," I said, even though I didn't really care how Mike was because he wasn't as hot as Edward.

"He absolutely loathes me," Edward said, using one of those old-timey words again that made me feel like he was from the past.

"You can't know that," I said.

Edward laughed and winked at the audience like they knew something I didn't. They probably knew a lot of stuff I didn't, though.

The nurse came back in, "You're looking better," she said then paused, "Well…relatively."

"I'm fine now!" I said, springing off the cot, "I'll just leave with Edward then."

The nurse might have found this suspicious, but then a Ms. Cope stuck her head in the door, "We've got another one," she said, "We really need to get Mr. Banner to stop doing this lab."

Edward and I walked out of the room as Mike came through the door supporting Lee Stephens.

"Oh no," Edward muttered. I snorted. I was about to point out how no one in real life ever said, "oh no," when he said, desperation in his yellow eyes, "Get out! Bella! Get out of the office now!"

I knew there was no time to waste so without hesitation I bolted outside to safety.

Edward followed at a casual pace.

"You actually listened to me," he sounded stunned.

"I smelled the blood," I pointed out, not wanting to think I was just some diminutive female he could walk all over.

"Humans can't smell blood," he contradicted.

"Well, I can cause I'm just your normal, average, every day girl next door. Blood smells like rust and salt."

Edward knit his eyebrows together, "It smells like flowers and heroin to me."

"But you said you couldn't smell blood," I had him there.

"No, I said _humans_ can't smell blood."

"Oh."

I guess that made sense, he wasn't really a human, he was a model.

Then Mike came out of the nurses office totally cock blocking me _again_!

"You look better," he accused like I'd been faking it or something so that I'd be outside when Edward happened to be passing by so he would offer to carry me to the nurses office and further nurture are burgeoning romance. It was a reasonable theory actually.

"Are you going back to class?" he asked.

"No, you idiot, I'd just have to come right back."

Mike pouted, "Whatever, so are you going with us to the beach this weekend?"

"I said I was, didn't I?" I responded aggressively, not appreciating the fact that he was questioning the value of my word. (Note: the value of my words are worth over $473,674,000!)

"We're meeting at my dad's store at ten. Cause if there's anything normal teenagers do on the weekend, it's wake up early enough to be doing stuff by ten."

"I'll be there," I said.

"Okay, I guess I'll see you in Gym then. And whatever you do, make sure you don't invite Edward Cullen."

Mike scampered off.

I turned to Edward, "Want to go to the beach this weekend?"

Edward raised an eyebrow, "I don't think I was invited."

"Nonsense, I just invited you."

"What beach?"

"La Push, on the Indian reservation."

Edward frowned, "No, I don't think I'll go,"

"Ah, come on, why not?"

"I don't go to La Push."

I was sad Edward didn't want to go, but I wasn't about to be a crazy bitch and force him.

Then Edward forced me to leave school early, forced me to let him drive me home, forced me to answer a bunch of really personal questions I didn't want to answer and I was totally into it.


	8. Chapter 6: Scary Stories

Chapter 6: Scary Stories

As I sat in my room, trying to concentrate on the third act of _Macbeth_ (pft, yeah right,) I was really thinking about Edward and how sexy he would look in a kilt.

Friday totally sucked. It started with my friends taking interest in my life.

"So what did Edward Cullen want yesterday?" Jessica asked.

I tried to figure out when she had seen me talking to Edward, since our last interaction happened in the nurse's office/his car and Jessica definitely wasn't around. Then, after reading through the last chapter I remembered that we'd also spoken at lunch and they'd been watching us the whole time. Man, that feels like months and months ago, but it was only yesterday afternoon.

"So what did Edward Cullen want yesterday?" Jessica repeats, me having gotten so caught up in thinking about Edward I forgot she existed.

"Oh, I dunno," I said.

"You looked kind of mad," she fished. She fished a lot really. She always sort of smelled like fish too. I think she would have had a better shot with Mike if she wasn't always wearing thigh high fishing waders.

"Did I?" I kept my expression blank (fun fact: this is the sentence Kristin Stewart will base her entire performance on.)

"You know, I've never seen him sit with anyone but his family before. That was weird."

I suppose it is weird when a high school boy won't associate with anyone outside his incestuous family. It sounds like the kind of think that would make Rob Zombie make a movie about you.

The worst part about Friday was that Edward wasn't there, obvs. Even though he had told me previously that he wouldn't be in school I was still bummed. The way when I walk into the grocery store and he isn't there I'm bummed. Or when I walk into the checkup room at my doctor's and he isn't there, I'm bummed. Basically whenever I go anywhere Edward isn't, I'm bummed. And we haven't even sucked face yet.

At my unfortunately usual table everyone was full of our plans for the next day. Wait…that didn't make sense at all? "Everyone was full of our plans?" What the hell does that mean? Oh, well, I'm sure the editor will notice and fix it later. Mike was putting all his faith in the local weatherman who promised sun. I'd been burned one too many times by this weatherman, though, and knew him to be a dirty liar intent on my misery. So it would probably pour and I'd be miserable.

Lauren, who I don't think I've mentioned before, but Lauren was glaring at me all lunch. I thought that maybe she has misinterpreted my detached, gloomy expression as maliciously directed at her until I was creeping, unnoticed, behind her as she walked out of lunch and said , "…don't know why _Bella_ doesn't just sit with the Cullens from now on." I don't know why I didn't hear the beginning of that even though I was listening the whole time.

I heard her muttering to Mike. I'd never noticed what an unpleasant, nasal voice she had until she started talking shit about me, instead of the other kids at school. I couldn't believe she would say those things about me behind my back! Except I was behind her back and she was saying them not to my face, really, but in front of my face. I had worked myself into a dense confusion so I missed my next class, wandering around the school grounds in a daze.

That night at dinner, Charlie was excited about my trip to La Push. I think he felt guilty for leaving me home alone on the weekends, but he'd spent too many years building his habits to break them now, and it's not like I was anyone important, just his only child.

"It'll be good for you to get out of the house," he said, "In fact, if you don't want to come back after, or ever, you don't have to."

I meant to sleep in but I was just too damn responsible. I woke early in the morning and found myself in a completely different location. While I had gone to sleep in a dark room I was now surrounded by unusual brightness. The room I was in now looked like a cruel mockery of my real room, the way Picasso's cubism is a mockery of legitimate art. I touched my blanket which felt the same but was a completely different shade of purple. Cautiously I climbed out of bed and crept to the window. I looked up in the sky and realized what was wrong. My room was being illuminated by natural sunlight. I let out a shriek. A few minutes later my dad knocked on the door, "You okay?" he asked.

"The sun! The sun!" I screamed myself hoarse.

"Um…yeah, okay," he lumbered away.

I pulled into the parking lot trying really hard not to hit the people there. There was Mike, and Tyler, and Eric (gag me with a spoon) and two other boys who I think were named Ben and Conner but why do they even matter? As far as girls go, there was Jess and Angela and Lauren and three other girls, one of whom I was surprised to see because she fell down in gym yesterday and I thought she was dead. The not dead one gave me a dirty look as I got out of the truck (I guess if she was alive she didn't appreciate the impromptu eulogy I'd given her when she fell and the dirt I threw on her face while crying.) She whispered something to Lauren who eyed me scornfully.

So it was going to be one of _those _days. You know, those days where the blonde girls are mean to you, not because you have a horrible personality and are, in general, a god awful person, but because you sat with a cute boy who they wish they could have sat with.

Mike was happy to see me though. He bounded over, tongue hanging out and gave me a big lick on my face.

"Mike! Down!" I commanded and he obeyed.

"You came!" he panted.

"I told you I was coming," I said, apparently oblivious to the fact "come" is a word one must use carefully to avoid 'that's what she said' comments.

"Will you ride in my car?" he asked.

"Yes I will ride in your car," I responded.

He smiled blissfully. Man, if he was this happy just because I'd get in his car imagine what he'd do if I ever held his hand or kissed his cheek.

"We're just waiting for some other people who won't be mentioned again, ever, in this series."

"Um, could you give them names?" I request, "Just because the more named characters in a book the better it is."

"Oh, sure, anything for you my one true love, Isabella "Bella" Swan. Lee and Samantha are coming. Lee's bringing Ben, Naomi, and Allie, and Naomi doesn't go anywhere without her boyfriend Dustin. Dustin's going to bring his cousin Annabell, and Annabell's going to bring her twin Annalise, and Samantha's got her friends Yumi, Kathie, Nancy, and Tom. Tom has his buddy Louis tagging along, and you know Louis's going to bring Claudia, Armand, Lestat, and Santiago. Plus my sister Vicky's coming, with her Gertrude, Juan, Paulo, Humphrey, and Jack. Jack doesn't go anywhere without Jill. Oh, and I almost forgot about, Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopy, Sneezey, Happy, Bashful, Moe, Curly, Larry, with their father, his son, and the Holy Ghost, and…yep that's it."

I felt bad for Cynthia, because it seemed she was the only one in school not invited.

It was only fifteen miles to La Push from Forks (go ahead, Google it motherfuckers! (I did.)) We'd rolled the windows down—the Suburban was a bit claustrophobic with nineteen people in it.

I recognized the beach when we got there, because I'd been there before. There was a brisk wind coming off the waves, cool and briny (I'm sorry, am I a typical teenaged girl or a pirate?) The sun was still shining on bravely and there were ocean birds like pelicans and eagles flying all over the place. Which gave me a good idea. I could make myself wings and fly up to the sun and be able to take so much more advantage of it. I filed the thought away in my mental "good ideas" file and joined the rest of the people on the beach.

After half an hour of nothing happening something happened. Some of the boys wanted to hike over to the tidal pools. It was a dilemma. On the one hand, I loved tidal pools, on the other I was clumsy. Actually, I just looked up the word 'dilemma' and this wasn't one at all, not even kind of. As it turned out, everyone I liked the least didn't want to go and everyone I liked the most did, so I decided to go to the tidal pools.

We went to the tidal pools, nothing happened, we went back.

When we went back to the beach the group we'd left behind had multiplied. At first I thought Eric and Tyler had managed to start some sort of weird sex cult with the girls who'd all gotten pregnant and given birth while we were gone. But then I remembered we'd only been gone a couple hours, not a couple days, so probably not. As it turned out it was just a bunch of Native American boys.

One of them was named Jacob and I could tell he'd fallen in love with me immediately, but I thought nothing of it.

I sat with Angela who I liked because she wasn't always trying to talk to me and distract me from thoughts of Edward. I realized how disjointedly time seemed to flow in Forks, passing at a blur at times, with single images standing out more clearly than others. And then, at other times, every second was significant, or at least described in excruciating detail. I shook my head and smiled, surely, if real life was written by an author it wouldn't be this way.

After lunch everybody went off to do their own thing. I didn't have my own thing beside obsessing over Edward so I just kept sitting and thinking. However, when Angela left to go hiking, the little boy, Jacob, came to sit next to me. He looked to be about fourteen or fifteen with long black hair and beautiful, silky, russet colored skin (I'm not calling him a red skin, I'm not racist!) I was mildly attracted to him in the uncomfortable way old ladies are attracted to Justin Bieber.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"

Oh no! It was like the first day of school again, when everybody knew who I was and cared about me and wanted to be my friend!

"Bella," I grumbled wishing the earth would open up and swallow him right there.

"I'm Jacob Black," he held his hand out in a friendly gesture unfamiliar to me, maybe this was an Indian thing? "You bought my dad's truck."

"Oh, you're Jacob," I said, "I should probably remember you."

"No, I was too young, You probably remember my older sisters Rachel and Rebecca."

I blinked, "Wait…you're older sister is Rebecca Black?" All of a sudden the comparison to Justin Bieber seemed all the more apropos. OMG! Jacob Black, Justin Bieber, they even have the same initials!

Jacob looked down at the ground below him shamefully, "We don't like to talk about her anymore."

"I understand!" and for once, I really did understand, "I promise never to bring up either of your sisters ever again."

"Thank you," Jacob said, "So do you like the truck?"

"Yeah, I love the power trips it takes me on."

"So Bella, you know Jacob?" Lauren asked—in what I imagined to be an insolent tone.

"I used to know Jacob, but I forgot about him completely because, honestly, look at this kid with his stupid hair and prepubescent lack of muscle tone. Maybe if he could turn into a wolf or something."

"How nice," she didn't sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale, fishy eyes narrowed. Strange how I never noticed how ugly she was until she started treating me with something less than adoration.

"Bella," she called again, "I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them? The poor dears. I guess Edward's willing to move across the lunch room for you, but not any farther than that."

I was about to say something snide back to that bitch but a tall older boy interrupted, "You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?"

I was really beginning to wonder if there was another Cullen family in the area, why did everyone have to clarify that it was Carlisle Cullen's family? The tall, older boy, for his part, was really more of a man and his voice was very deep. Come to think of it, it was actually kind of creepy that he was hanging out with a bunch of teenagers.

"Do you know them?" she asked, angrily, like she was thinking _Great, not only will Edward sit with Bella before he'll sit with me, but he'll sit with Native American men before he'll sit with me too_!

"The Cullens don't come here," he said in a way I imagined to be ominous.

Lauren stopped paying attention, her role in bringing up the subject done, and went back to flirting with Tyler. I think she liked he because he'd hit me with his van.

Jacob asked me, "So is Forks driving you insane yet?"

"I'd say yes, but in the next book I'm going to start hallucinating my ex-boyfriend and jumping off of cliffs, so, no, not really."

I was still wondering why the Cullens didn't go to a nice beach like La Push. I had an inspiration. It was a stupid plan, but I couldn't think of anything better. I hoped that Jacob was too young and inexperienced with girls so he wouldn't see through my pitiful attempts at flirting.

"Do you want to walk down the beach with me?" I tried to sound sexy, but mostly I sounded like a robot.

Jacob was taken aback by my forwardness but he agreed.

We started to walk as the sky grew more and more appropriately intense.

"So you're, what, sixteen?" I knew he wasn't nearly that old, but if I could pretend, then I could pretend I wasn't almost a pedophile.

"I just turned fifteen," he said, "Today."

Ugh, only fifteen. And I was nearly eighteen. I guess as long as I didn't have to get physical with him it would be alright.

"I thought you were older," I lied.

"I'm tall for my age," he said. I guess this could be true, but I still towered over him.

"So why don't the Cullens come down here?" I smoothly change the subject.

Jacob frowns, "That information is classified."

"Look," I said, "I'm trying to find a way to say this without being disrespectful, but Damn yous a sexy bitch," I wink at him, running my tongue over my lips in a way I hope is sexy and doesn't make me look like a clown rapist.

Jacob looks at me wide eyed.

"Why don't the Cullens come down here?" I try to hypnotize him with my smoldering brown eyes.

"Do you like scary stories?" he asks me.

"I _love _them!" I try to keep up a healthy smolder, but I'm distracted thinking about the scream movies and wondering if Jacob's planning on telling me why the Cullens don't come here or if he's going to clumsily stab me to death and hang me from a tree.

"Well, that's too bad, because this story isn't scary at all."

Few, once again I narrowly avoided becoming Drew Barrymore.

"So basically there's this story in my tribe about how the cold, white people came around and started slaughtering everyone, and then the elders turned into wolves and killed them. Honestly I always thought it was a metaphor, a call to arms for Native Americans to stand up to the invading settlers instead of allowing them to kick us off our land but—"

"But what does that have to do with the Cullens?"

Jacob raises an eyebrow at me, like _really, you need me to spell it out for you_? "Um, the Cullens are cold and pale."

"Well, if the Cullens are cold and pale why hasn't your tribe turned into wolves and killed them yet?" Once I say the question out loud it sounds kind of stupid.

"Jeez, Bella, it's just a story."

"Oh yeah, right."

Jacob seems to regret having snapped at me like that so he says, "But the explanation of legend is that the Cullens are 'civilized.' In that they don't eat people, only animals. So my tribe made a treaty with them, they don't come on our land, and we don't tell anyone they're vampires. Oops, guess I just broke a centuries old treaty for a girl because she called me a sexy bitch."

He shrugs.

"Don't worry, I'll take it to the grave." I tell him, ironically because I won't—have a grave or take it there.

Then we heard the sounds of people approaching. We looked up and saw Mike and Jessica walking toward us.

"There you are Bella!" Mike shouted, waving his arms around.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Jacob asked.

"No, definitely not," I whispered. I was tremendously grateful to Jacob, and eager to make him happy as possible. I made a mental not to give him a quick hj later.

"Where have you been?" Mike asked, snarling at Jacob. It was one thing for Mike to be instantly jealous of Edward, a super hot boy my age who I saw every day, but being instantly jealous of a little kid I just met was going a little over board I think.

"I've been here," I said, gesturing to the beach around me.

"Oh," Mike said, "Well, we're going now."

"Okay, see you later Jacob!"

I ran off with my friends.


	9. Chapter 7: Nightmare

Chapter 7: Nightmare

I told Charlie that I had a lot of homework to do and I didn't want anything to eat because I'm anorexic now. There was a basketball game on, so he didn't even acknowledge me.

I could bore you with a few paragraphs about listening to a CD of a band I don't really like, but the point is that _I_ fell asleep, not you.

I woke up in a familiar place, surprise surprise. I was aware that I was dreaming and I was in a forest near an ocean. I knew that if I found the ocean I could see the sun. I came upon the sad realization that seeing the sun was turning into one of my only motivations. I would have to put in the extra effort to make sure dating Edward would be my sole motivation in the future.

Speaking of Edward, a person suddenly took my hand and started pulling me away from the ocean. Oh, no, wait, it was just Jacob Black. I felt a nervousness in my stomach, what if this turns into one of _those_ dreams? I might start having some inner turmoil wondering if I'm a pedophile? I don't know if I can handle complex emotions like that!

"What's wrong?" I asked, because I could tell something was wrong from the expression on his russet face.

"Run, Bella! You must run!" he shouted like something was wrong.

"This way Bella!" I heard Mike's voice calling out from the darkest depths of the forest. Great, my first orgy dream and it's with flippin' Mike Newton, and Rebecca Black's younger brother. Edward Cullen and Martin Scorsese are nowhere in sight.

"Why?" I groaned.

Jacob fell over and turned into a wolf, I watched in horror. Pedophilia _and_ bestiality? Things were not looking good.

"Bella Run!" Mike yelled again, and I began regretting wasting all my dog analogies on the character who _wasn't_ a werewolf.

But then the day was saved! Edward stepped out of the trees, shirtless, glowing, radiant as a god. Like a god with soulless black eyes and razor sharp fangs.

The wolf growled at him, like he didn't trust this epic figure or something.

Edward stepped forward and pulled his lips back in a smile, the kind of smile a mob boss gives before ordering the thumbs cut off some poor shmuck who tried to rip him off.

"Trust me," he purred. Sorry for the funny verb choice, but I was having a hard time getting out of the furry mind set, you know how it is.

I did trust him, so I stepped toward him.

The wolf launched toward Edward.

"No!" I screamed, wrenching upright out of my bed.

I was in my bed, still dressed, wearing all of my clothes, I still had on my shoes. It was only five thirty in the morning but I couldn't fall back asleep.

I looked out this window and saw Charlie's cruiser gone, he had chosen the fishing pond over me again.

I pulled off my pants.

I unbraided my hair.

I took a really long shower.

I blow dried my hair.

I wrapped a towel around me.

I walked back to my room.

I put on my pants.

I put on my shirt.

I made my bed.

I turned on my computer.

I went down stairs.

I ate cereal carefully.

I washed the bowl.

I washed the spoon.

I dried the bowl.

I dried the spoon.

I went back upstairs.

I got my CD player.

I put it on the table.

I took out the headphones.

I pressed play.

I turned the volume down.

I sat down in the desk chair.

I closed the pop up ads.

I typed in one word.

_Vampire._

It took an infuriatingly long time, can you imagine how annoying it would be to have to waste your time sitting there while nothing of interest happened?

When the results finally loaded I was disappointed. All I got was stuff about TV shows, role-playing games, goths, idiotic young adult novels, and Nicholas Cage. Then I realized it was a mistake to disregard the first three results which were: Wikipedia, "How Vampires work", and Vampires A—Z.

When the page finally loaded I saw it was headed with two quotes.

"Throughout the vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet adored with such fearful fascination as the vampire who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both." –Rev. Montague Summers

"If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?" –Rousseau.

I thought about the quotes. The Rev's vampires sounded really cool, but I couldn't help but feel they would be better if instead of having qualities of both ghosts and demons they had qualities of both diamonds, and male models.

Most of the vampires on the site were all interested in seducing people and drinking their blood till they died. Yawn. Nothing was like what Jacob had told me. Beside the whole be cold, hot, and drinking blood thing.

And then there was another problem (though maybe problem isn't the right word to use when it prevents your boyfriend from being a bloodsucking hell beast) I knew, from movies and what not, that vampires couldn't come out in the daylight, and I'd seen Edward out in the daylight on more than one occasion. And whenever the sun was shining he always went camping. Vampires can't camp when it's sunny out.

I was frustrated so I threw my computer out the window, not wanting to wait to shut it down properly. What was wrong with me? Well, daddy issues for one, mommy issues for another, teenaged hormones, poor character development, and general lack of intelligence and emotional maturity, but I decided that most of the blame belonged on the doorstep of the town of Forks—and the entire sodden Olympic Peninsula, for that matter.

I just had to get out of the house. I put on my rain coat and my galoshes and headed out the door into the woods behind the house. I walked fast, fueled by my anger. What was the point of dating a boy who _wasn't _hell spawn?

I decided to sit down on a fallen tree. I could tell it was recently fallen because I'd already done that biology lab at my far superior last school. I made sure my coat was between my butt and the damp tree trunk because there's nothing worse than having a dirty, wet ass. Except maybe, having a super hot boyfriend who doesn't have supernatural powers with which to murder you. I looked around the forest which was deep and green and just like the nightmare I'd just had. I realized maybe I shouldn't have gone here, since I'm terrified of the forest and have gotten so lost I nearly starved to death before.

It was about time I started thinking. There were two questions I had to answer. One: How do I have such a great life but am so pointlessly bitter? Two: Why did so many people like me despite my average looks and off-putting personality? I was about to think about that, honestly, but then I thought of two other questions that were about boys so I decided to think about those instead. One: Was what Jacob said about the Cullens true? No, that was actually kind of a stupid question, come to think of it. Entertaining that idea was silly and morbid, and I am anything but silly and morbid. I thought about Edward, how his eyes mysteriously changed color from shade-of-black to shade-of-yellow, how his skin was unnaturally pale and cold and beautiful, how he was impossibly strong and fast, how he never ate, how he walked with such grace, how he sometimes spoke like an old person instead of a seventeen year old boy. I hadn't heard him say 'bro' even once. Then there was the fact that he could obviously read minds, except mine, thank god, because there is no way in heck he would find me as interesting as he does if he knew what I was thinking, or rather what I wasn't thinking.

Second question: despite all this evidence to the contrary, could the Cullens be vampires?

I guess it was possible, I mean, clearly they weren't human, whether it be Jacob's cold ones or my own model theory, they were more than human. But surely if they were vampires I couldn't be the first person to have thought of this. I mean, it seemed so incredibly obvious and I'd only known them a couple weeks. The people around here had known them for years. Of course the people around here are small town hicks and probably not capable of figuring anything out other than how to drink canned beer and not brush their teeth.

Ooh! I've thought of another question, man I'm on a roll today. If all this vampire nonsense turns out to be non-nonsense what am _I_ going to do about it? I couldn't tell anybody about it because they'd just think I was uber cra-cra. I guess there were only two options. I could keep hanging out with Edward and hopefully have him ravaging me against the dumpster behind the diner while my dad ignorantly ate his steak and potatoes before the week was out, or start avoiding him. On second thought, I guess there was only one options: keep hanging out with him. I would literally die if I didn't get to see him every moment of every day, our love is so romantic and healthy. Sigh.

My life plan all figured out I went back inside around noon and got dressed for the day. I sat down to my task for the day: a paper on _Macbeth_. With the internet as slow as it was here, it would probably take the whole rest of the day to download one off the web.

When my plagiarism was successfully completed I went to bed early and slept pretty damn dreamlessly for a chapter entitled nightmare.

I woke up to the sun and was again disoriented. But I got my bearing faster than the last time. When I went down stairs Charlie was just finishing his breakfast.

"Crap, I thought you'd be asleep for at least fifteen more minutes," he looked longingly at the door, probably eager to get out into the sun.

"Yes," I agreed.

Charlie smiled awkwardly. When he smiled I could see why my mom had tapped that so irresponsibly. Most of Charlie's appeal had receded away like his hair before I ever met him. They were probably connected.

Charlie snuck out while I was pouring the milk in my cereal. I scarfed down my food and ran outside. It was so bright! I could definitely see why everybody in Washington State commits suicide. The rain is depressing!

I jumped into my truck and sped off to school. It wasn't until I arrived in the empty parking lot I realized I was three hours early. Oh well, I could do studious things like the brilliant student I am. I sat down at one of the picnic tables, I wasn't sure why they had so many picnic tables when it was always raining, but it was probably the same lack of foresight that made them build the school in separate buildings. I had all my homework done, but I decided to check some of the work on my trig problems (with a social life like mine, trig was the least of my problems, hehe.) I didn't check the work though, I just doodled, because my scholarly nature is pretty much an outright lie.

"Hey, Bella!"

Edward! I snapped my head up. But it was only Mike. I realized that all the other students had arrived while I was not paying attention.

"Oh, hi, Mike," I mumbled disappointedly.

Mike sat down on the bench next to me. He took a strand of my hair in his fingers, "I never noticed before, your hair has red in it."

It was probably the sweetest thing any male character had said to me in this entire book thusfar, and it made me super uncomfortable. It was like getting hit on by a puppy.

"Only in the sun," I said resentfully, deciding Mike was very much to blame for the weather in this godforsaken land.

"What did you do yesterday?" he asked like he was my fucking keeper or something.

"I walked in the woods, and decided I was gonna lose it to a vampire, and worked on my essay."

He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand, "Oh yeah—that's due Thursday right?"

"Wednesday, I think," I lied. I knew it was due Wednesday, but I didn't want Mike to think I was pretentious or something.

"What are you doing yours on?"

"Whether Shakespeare's treatment of the female characters is misogynistic."

Mike burst out laughing.

"What?" I asked.

His laughter dried up, he looked at me incredulously, "You really don't see it?"

"See what?"

Mike shook his head, "I gotta go before they get here."

I frowned confused, "Before who gets here?"

Mike stood, "The hipsters. All this irony," he waved his arms, indicating my person, "It's going to start a feeding frenzy."

I still didn't get what Mike was talking about but I was glad he was leaving me alone.

[Insert several pages about the school day that have no importance whatsoever.]

In trig Jessica asked me to go shopping with her and some other girls in Port Angeles, I said maybe.

[More pointless description of a typical day in high school.]

Edward wasn't in school.

[More boring high school day to day.]

I left school, happy I would have time to mope about before I had to put on a happy face to go shopping. But when I walked into my house Jessica called and cancelled because Mike had asked her out.

I thought about this morning at the picnic bench, when he'd really noticed me and felt a little something in my stomach. But then I remembered how Edward wasn't in school today and decided to overanalyze his absence instead of coveting a normal existence.

When I was done over analyzing everything Edward had ever said to me, I decided to check my email, in case he had sent me a message declaring his love. It would be so sweet to get a declaration of love through an email, even better if it was misspelled and devoid of punctuation.

But all the emails were from my mom, getting snippier and snippier as time went on. As far as I could tell she and Phil were in D.C. canvasing the White House, looking for the secret entrance to the high security dungeon basement I was being held in.

I started typing a response,

Mom

Sorry. I've been trying to figure out if my one true love is a soulless monster and, if it turns out he's not, if I want to put in the effort for a relationship.

I sighed. My excuse seemed lame, so I gave up on that and closed the window without sending my response.

THE REMANDER OF THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REDACTED BECAUSE THE PUBLIC SHOULD NEVER BE SUBJECTED TO POINTLESSNESS ON THIS LEVE


	10. Chapter 8: Port Angeles

Chapter 8: Port Angeles

Jess drove faster than the Chief, so we made it to Port Angeles by four. When I say Chief I'm referring to my father, I realize this may be confusing, especially in a book in which Native Americans feature so prominently. I'd been a while since I'd had a girls' night out (since I had no friends and stuff) and the rush of e was invigorating. E referring to estrogen, of course. We listened to whiny rock songs (authors note: this is the sentence the directors of the Twilight movie latched onto when picking the soundtrack) while Jessica jabbered on about the boys we hung out with. Her dinner with Mike had gone very well and she was hoping by Saturday night they would have progressed to the first-kiss stage. I laughed to myself because Jessica's relationship with Mike seemed so juvenile. By Saturday I was hoping to reach the committed to each other by blood oath stage with Edward. Angela was happy to be going to the dance but not interested in Eric, because honestly who'd be interested in that stupid loser? Jessica tried to get her to admit what her type was but I interrupted with questions about dresses because we're girls!

Port Angeles was a beautiful little town, if you liked crummy tourists traps and are able to enjoy stuff, which I can't (unless, of course, it starts with an E and ends in ternally bound together.) Jessica and Angela had been here before though, so they ignored the picturesque board walk and quaint independent shops and went straight to the department store, just like how people familiar with reading skip all the classics and go straight for Twilight.

The dance was semiformal but what did that really mean? Wasn't something formal or casual? This is a world of black and white, you're hot or you're not, you're a vampire or you're not. That's what makes the world interesting, imagine if everything was just in shades of grey? Like, what if Edward actually had flaws? I mean, like, legit flaws, not the pretend ones he thinks he has or the unintended ones that result from my ineptitude with character development. What if he had real flaws that made him a three dimensional character with layers and crap, then everyone might get distracted from how smoking hot he is and miss the point entirely! And no one wants to fantasize about a vampire with real issues.

I told Jessica and Angela how I'd never been to a dance before and they were stunned, it was literally the most shocking thing they had ever heard.

"How do you expect normal teenage girls to relate to you if you've never been to a dance?" queried Jessica.

"Lots of teenage girls haven't been to school dances," I countered.

"But teenage girls who'll read _your_ book?"

She had a point, it was difficult to imagine some burn out freak girl enjoying a thousand pages of my inner monologue, let alone wishing she was the I when I say I.

"Didn't you ever go with a boyfriend or something?"

I couldn't admit the shame of my dancing incapability so I told her how I'd never had a boyfriend or even just a friend. Jessica seemed skeptical since I'd already been asked out by every boy in school, even ones that had tried to hit me with their van.

"I really didn't have a boyfriend," I repeated, "I was too busy giving my mom baths and making sure she didn't accidentally stab herself with a kitchen knife."

"You gave your mom _baths_?" Angela asked, shocked.

"Chyah," I shrugged and look away to hide my red cheeks. My cheeks were red because I was embarrassed, "No homo, or anything. No incest-o either."

"Well lots of people ask you out here and you say no," Jessica pointed out in case you had forgotten my desirability.

"Well, except for Tyler," Angela amended.

"WLkera;wjeflmse WHAT!?" I shrieked.

"Tyler told everyone he's taking you to prom."

I'll admit it, I was having trouble remembering which one Tyler was, but I was %99 positive that he wasn't Edward and that meant he wasn't taking me to prom.

"I told you it wasn't true," Angela murmured to Jessica, but I heard her say it.

I was so angry I could have punched a baby, but unfortunately there were no infants around, so I settled for a pregnant lady in the maternity section. After Jess and Angela had convinced the woman not to press charges we got down to business. The girls both found some dresses and tried them on. Jess was having trouble deciding between a slutty black dress and a slutty electric blue dress, I encouraged her to go with the electric blue dress because I have a terrible fashion sense. Angela chose a pretty pink dress that brought out her blandly pleasant, wall flower features. I complimented them both profusely and helped them a lot even though it was hard to focus on someone who wasn't me or Edward for that long.

Once they had purchased their dresses I was ready to move onto another scene, but they still had to buy jewelry and shoes. Jessica got silver stripper shoes. While she was drooling over them I approached Angela.

"Hey, Angela, is it…normal for the Cullens to be absent from school a lot?" I asked her.

"Oh yeah," she said, "They're absent whenever it's sunny to go camping. I think that's why they've been held back so much. They've been in the same grade for the last twenty years."

She didn't ask one question like "Why are you so obsessed with the Cullens?" Or "Why have they not aged at all in the past twenty years?" Which, I guess, is how the Cullens have managed to go undetected this long.

We were going to eat dinner at this Italian restaurant but our dress shopping hadn't taken as long as planned. Jessica and Angela were going to put their dresses in the car then walk to the bay. I told them I'd meet them at the restaurant in an hour, I was going to find a bookstore. They were both willing to come with me, but I reminded them that a group of girls was a lot less likely to get raped than a lone girl walking the streets of a strange town at night. They both agreed it was a fair point and let me go out on my own.

I found the bookstore with no trouble, but it wasn't what I was looking for. It looked like a hippy store, and to make matters worse it was in a well-lit, highly trafficked part of town. I figured there must have been a normal bookstore in town and I wandered down the nearest ally looking for it. I wandered for a long time, not paying as much attention to where I was going as I should have. I was wrestling with despair. No, seriously. "wrestling with despair" that's really what I said. I was trying not to think about _him_ and what Angela had said about them. Were the Cullens really so outdoorsy? I'm not good outdoors. I could get hopelessly lost ten feet from my house—no, seriously, it'll happen, just wait. Could Edward ever be interested in a girl who couldn't climb Mount Everest? Could any boy ever?

"Hey there!" a voice shouted, interrupting my unnecessary moping time.

I looked up and saw a group of four dangerous looking men, drunk and a few years older than me.

"Hello," I mumbled reflexively, picking up my pace trying to get away from these dirty criminals.

"Hey, wait!" one of them called after me.

I didn't wait though, my unreliable sense of self-preservation kicking in for once. I walked until I could no longer hear their sinister chortling.

Once I was done running for my virginity I took a moment to see where I was. It seemed I'd left the city limits of Port Angeles and was now in some sort of warehouse district. I tried to think of a worse place to end up, but naturally couldn't think of anything.

I noticed that it was starting to get dark, from both the sun setting and heavy clouds forming. I felt a shiver run down my back as I realized the weather was getting a bit too dramatic for a casual stroll down the road. I glanced over my shoulder to glare at the offending clouds and noticed two men walking silently behind me.

I really hadn't heard them before, and there was a chance, and I didn't know how big that chance was, that they were vampires. I decided, just to be safe, I'd get to a more populated area before asking. I continued down the block and turned the corner. I could see pedestrians in the distance, but it they were all too far away, because the other two men were leaning against a wall between me and them.

I gulped.

The situation was seeming less than ideal.

"There you are!" one of the men boomed.

I took my purse off and gripped the handle, ready to pelt them a good one if needed.

"Stay away from me," I muttered.

"Don't be like that, sugar," said one of the men, approaching me.

I relaxed a little. Sugar, while demeaning and degrading, wasn't a very threating thing to be called. It wasn't like they were dressed in white jump suits and calling me Devotchka or anything.

Suddenly a silver car appeared out of nowhere, screeching to a halt next to me. As a pleasant surprise Edward popped out of the drivers side door looking all hot and bothered.

"Get in," he growled.

I waited for one of the men to oblige.

"Bella, get in," he specified.

"Oh, you meant me," I skipped to the passenger side and slid into the car.

Edward got back in the car and slammed the door.

"Put on your seat belt," he commanded as he through the car in reverse and sped off, leaving the men stupefied on the street. I obediently put on my seat belt.

Edward looked upset about something so I asked him, "Are you okay?"

"No," he said lividly.

I wasn't anticipating that answer. I'm pretty sure the polite response to "Are you okay?" is "Yeah, are you?" The way the polite response to "How are you?" is "Good, how're you?" So I sat in silence not sure what to say.

I looked out the window but it was too dark to see anything and Edward was driving too fast.

"Bella," he said through clenched teeth.

"Yes?" I breathed.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," I replied, confused. What could be the matter with me? I was sitting next to the love of my life.

"Distract me," he ordered.

"How?" I asked. I couldn't think of anything that could be more distracting than Edward, but he was with himself all the time so I doubted my usual conversation topic would work.

"Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down."

Well that should be easy enough. I wracked my brain for something trivial. There was so much, it was hard to choose where to start.

"I'm going to run over Tyler with my truck tomorrow."

"Why?"

"He's telling everyone that he's taking me to prom, when I am _waaaayyyy _out of his league. Either he's insane or he's still trying to make up for almost killing me. Like, get over it dude. And he thinks _prom_ is somehow the correct way to do this. So I figure if I kill him, no more problem."

"I heard about that," he sounded a bit more composed and I thought maybe he'd _really_ been upset because he thought I was going to prom with Tyler.

"_You_ did?" I asked him, shocked because he never talks to anyone outside of his family, probably in an effort not to stand out as much.

"Are you feeling better?" I asked him.

"Not really."

Again, not the response I was expecting. It was like someone posting a vaguely upset status message on facebook for attention. So I felt obligated to ask, "What's wrong?"

"Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella," he said in an uncomfortably cool tone. Like in a movie when a guy you thought was normal turns out to be a serial killer, "It wouldn't be helpful for me to turn around and hunt down those…" he paused, "At least, that's what I'm trying to tell myself."

I might have wondered briefly why I felt so much safer alone in a car with a would be murderer than I did on the street with would be rapists, but the light from the dashboard exaggerated the manly angles of Edward's face and I couldn't think about stuff like that.

We sat in awkward silence for a little while longer.

"So…" I started, "I'm supposed to be meeting Jess and Angela for dinner at an Italian restaurant…"

Without a word Edward turned the car around and soon we were back in the light of street lamps barreling down the boardwalk toward the restaurant. He parallel-parked in a space I would have thought much too small for the Volvo, but he slid in effortlessly in one try. I wondered what _other_ small spaces he could slide effortlessly into, wink wink.

"How did you know where…" I began, but he ignored me. He hopped out of the car and in the blink of an eye he had my door open and was waiting for me to get out.

I stumbled out ungracefully because I'm clumsy.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm taking you to dinner," I felt faint. The way he didn't even ask if I wanted to go to dinner with him was soo sexy I almost jumped him right there on the boardwalk.

As we were walking into the restaurant we bumped into Angela and Jessica coming out.

"Where have you been?" Jessica asked suspiciously.

"I got lost," I admitted, embarrassed about my near assault. "And then I ran into Edward.

I pointed to him, as if they hadn't already noticed the magnificently beautiful man creature next to me.

"Would it be alright if I joined you?" he asked.

"Er…well, Angela and I were really hungry, and you didn't seem like you were going to show so we already ate."

I frowned, thinking about the timeline. It seemed to me, that to be able to have ordered, received, and eaten their food already they would've had to have gone straight to the restaurant instead of waiting the agreed upon hour. And it was kind of pissing me off that they decided to order pasta when I didn't show up instead of, like, looking for me. But they probably just instinctively knew I'd run into Edward and wanted to give me a chance to go on a date with him. It was thoughtful of them, since this night will be pretty much the only real "date" we go on in the entire series!

"Okay, I'll see you guys later," I said dismissively, prancing into the restaurant, Edward on my tail.

I guess they left because I didn't seem them again.

The restaurant wasn't crowded. The host was female, something I could have conveyed by calling her a hostess but then I would have missed out on using all these words. She was also prettier than me and she was checking Edward out hardcore. She welcomed him warmly jutting out her perky breasts in his direction. My welcome was less warm as she elbowed me surreptitiously in the stomach.

She led us to four person table in the middle of the restaurant. I was about to sit down when Edward said, "Maybe something a little more private?"

I was stunned, I'd never seen anyone but assholes refuse a table before. The host who was female brought us to a booth in the back corner, looking annoyed.

"Perfect," Edward flashed her a smile, dazing her momentarily.

"Um, your server will be right out," she said, walking away unsteadily.

"You shouldn't do that to people," I said.

"Do what?"

"Dazzle them like that, it's not fair."

He seemed confused.

"Don't play dumb with me, boy, you _have _to know you have that effect on people.

He tilted his head to the side, "I dazzle people?"

"Duh! That's the _point_."

"Do I dazzle _you_?" he asked, a trade mark sigh appearing in the air next to his perfect head.

"Frequently," I replied. We paused, freeze framing the moment.

Then our server arrived. She was another pretty girl. Did they only hire pretty girls here? She looked happy to see Edward and smiled at him unnecessarily at him. Though, in my opinion every smile is unnecessary.

"Hello. My name is Amber. I will be your server tonight. What can I get you to drink?" It did not get past my astute observation that she was speaking only to him.

Edward looked at me.

"I'll have a Coke please."

"Two Cokes please," he said to the waitress.

"I'll be right back with that," she said with another unnecessary smile, "Remember, if you drink Coke you can have a sexy boyfriend like Edward too!"

She walked away.

He stared at me.

"What?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," I replied, showing him the appropriate response to a question like that.

"You don't feel dizzy, sick, cold…?"

"No more than usual," I assured him.

"I'm actually waiting for you to go into shock," he chuckled. I wasn't going into shock, but if I was I didn't think chuckling was the appropriate action.

"I don't think that will happen," I said, "I mean, you could slit my throat right now, and—if I had time before I bled out—I'd probably make out with you."

"Just the same, I'll feel better when you have some sugar in you."

If it had been anyone beside Edward I might have thought it insensitive to bring up sugar when my would be rapist had just called me that. But Edward was just handsome enough to pull it off.

Right on cue the waitress showed up with our Cokes.

"Can I get you anything to eat?" she asked Edward.

"Bella?"

I had forgotten to look at the menu because I'd been talking to Edward. I didn't want any awkwardness while I looked over the menu so I just picked the first thing I saw, "I'll have the mushroom ravioli," I said. _Shit! I hate mushrooms!_ I felt tears start to well in my eyes at thought of the onslaught of disgusting I was about to have to endure. I felt my body tense up and I had to fight to keep my breathing regular. What could be worse than mushroom ravioli?

"Nothing for me," Edward said. Of course not.

The waitress left before I could find the strength to ask for something else. Somehow I would have to live with the violation of mushroom ravioli.

"Drink," Edward ordered. His bossiness was nothing if not arousing. I knew someday—with any luck _to_day—we'd have an explicit sex life. It would be so raunchy we'd have to change our names…I've always fancied myself an Anastasia…

I sipped my soda submissively while he watched me with his dominant eyes. While I was drinking I noticed he was wearing a jacket. It looked fuzzy and nice. An evil planned formed in my mind.

"Oh, burrrr," I said shivering.

"Are you cold?" he asked concerned.

"Burrrrr,"I repeated more dramatically.

"Do you have a jacket?" he asked.

"Oh," I pouted, "I left my jacket in Jessica's car."

I fought to keep the self-satisfied grin off my face as he shrugged out of his jacket and put it around my shoulders. What's a love story without the good old boy gives girl jacket cliché. Just a story, that's what, just a boring story with no love in it.

"Thanks," I said, and put my arms through the armholes. The jacket was cold, like mine was when I first put it on in the morning. This might have struck me as odd, but I was too busy smelling his wonderful scent on the fabric.

"That color blue looks lovely with your skin," he said, "It really brings out the blue of your veins."

"Thanks," I said blushing.

He pushed the bread basket toward me.

"Really, I'm not going into shock," I protested the breadsticks.

"You should be—a _normal_ person would be."

"I'm not normal," I tried to say seductively, "I'm better than normal, I'm self-destructive." I winked, "And I feel very safe with you."

I took a breadstick and put it in my mouth sexily. He furrowed his brow. I wondered if he was imagining the breadstick was his penis.

"This is more complicated than I'd planned," he murmured to himself. I was thankful for my good hearing, since everyone seems to communicated through murmurs and mutters in Washington.

"God, you're usually in a better mood when your eyes are this shade of yellow." I said.

"What?"

"You're usually only a bummer when your eyes are black, I expect it then."

"You're very observant." he said.

I shrugged, "Not really. Most of the time I don't even notice when I'm breathing, or walking, or falling, or talking," I realized I was blabbering on. "I have some theories about your eyes."

"More theories?" he said mockingly, "Were you more creative this time, or did you steal these from comic books as well?"

"I didn't come up with it on my own, but it's not from comic books," I said, not knowing that there are, indeed, comic books about vampires.

The waitress came with my food then. She put the disgusting mushroom raviolis down in front of me. I nearly puked right there. Much to my chagrin the mushrooms were shredded _into_ the ravioli itself, so I couldn't just pick around them. Could this day get any worse?

When the waitress left, Edward said, "You were saying?"

"I'll tell you about it in the car If.."I paused.

"there are conditions?"

"Of course."

I took a sip of my Coke, feeling a bit like a mob boss. It was a good feeling. Maybe mob boss would be a good career option for me, if my first plan of marrying a hot rich dude didn't work out.

"Why are you in Port Angeles?"

He looked down, "Next."

I picked up my fork, "You will answer my questions."

He sighed, "Okay then, let's say, hypothetically, that someone could read minds, with only one exception," he looked meaningfully at me. I was confused, this conversation had taken a weird and sudden turn. Why were we talking about hypothetical psychics like we were on the freakin syfy channel or something.

"Okay…" I went along, "How would this person be able to find someone, a girl let's say, the moment she was in trouble?"

"Hypothetically?" he repeated.

"Hypothetically."

"This mind reader would have to be stalking her, following her around everywhere, constantly reading the minds of everyone around her scanning for wrong doers."

"So you were stalking me?" I asked.

"Hypothetically."

"Well then, hypothetically, I'm really turned on."

"Weird." he said.

"That makes two times you've saved me now," I pointed out, "Do you ever think that maybe my number was up with Tyler's van and you've just been interfering with fate ever since."

He looked at me seriously, "You're number was up the first time I met you."

I wondered why teenaged girls didn't print out pictures of this moment and scribble that line over their notebooks. That was way hotter than "Do I dazzle you."


End file.
